Judicial quality, input customisation, and trade margins: the role of product quality

We study how the contracting environment affects the quality of trade. A better contracting environment not only induces specialisations in industries intensively using customised inputs, but also causes quality upgrading of domestic varieties and tougher competition in these industries. We incorporate these effects into a Ricardian model with customised input and product quality. Our model predicts that better judicial quality raises a country’s import prices and quality more in contract-intensive products, but has no impacts on its export prices or quality. We empirically confirm these predictions, and find that rising judicial quality is associated with increasing specialisations in contract-intensive industries.

PENGARUH RELIGIUSITAS DAN SKALA KECERDASAN BUDAYA TERHADAP ETHNOSENTRISME KONSUMEN BAGI PRODUK ASING 2019

This study seeks to understand the complicated relationship between religiosity and ethnocentrism of consumers by examining the mediating variable of cultural intelligence. The empirical model involves a structural equation model (SEM) with a data collection of 684 internet-user respondents. The results show that there was a positive impact of religiosity on consumer Ethnocentrism. In addition, the results also indicate that cultural intelligence strengthens the relationship between religiosity and ethnocentric consumerism. Overall, this study extends the discussion on cultural identity that incorporate into Ricardian model of international trade.

Can Ricardian Model Really Explain Trade?

This paper aims to analyse the international trade in the real world by applying the Ricardian trade theory. In doing this, simple comparative advantage assumptions are used to examine trading of palm oil and rice between Malaysia and Vietnam. By using this theory, it is proven that international trade takes place because of efficiency to produce exported product. A country will export products that use its abundant and cheap factors of production and import products that use its scarce factors. Various empirical evidences of previous studies are als o used to discuss the importance of the Ricardian model. However, it is also highlighted in the paper that the Ricardian model could be misleading as it has several limitations that restrict its usefulness.

Effect of Climate Change on Staple Food Production: Empirical Evidence from a Structural Ricardian Analysis

The structural Ricardian model has been used to examine the links between climate variables and staple food production in the literature. However, empirical extensions considering the cluster-correlated effects of climate change have been limited. This study aims to bridge this knowledge gap by extending the structural Ricardian model to accommodate for spatial clustering of the climate variables while examining their effects on staple food production. Based on nationally representative farm household data in Taiwan, the present study investigates the effect of climate conditions on both crop choice and the subsequent production of the three most important staple foods. The results suggest that seasonal temperature/precipitation variations are the major determinants of staple food production after controlling for farm households’ socio-economic characteristics. The impacts of seasonal climate variations are found to be location-dependent, which also vary significantly across the staple food commodities. Climate change impact assessment under four Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs) scenarios indicates the detrimental effect of climate change on rice production during 2021–2100. Under RCP6.0, the adverse effect of climate change on rice production will reach the high of approximately $2900 in the last two decades of the century. There is a gradual increase in terms of the size of negative impact on vegetable production under RCP2.6 and RCP4.5. Under RCP6.0 and RCP8.5, the effects of climate change on vegetable production switch in signs during the entire time span. The impact of climate change on fruits is different from the other two staple foods. The simulated results suggest that, except for RCP8.5, the positive impact of climate change on the production of fruits will be around $210–$320 in 2021–2040; the effect will then increase to $640–$870 before the end of the century.