Globalization and trade with emerging economies

Convener: Jakob Roland Munch, Professor, Department of Economics 

Aim

This workshop will focus on aspects related to international trade with emerging low-wage economies. The increasing role of countries such as China and India in world trade brings challenges as well as opportunities. On the one hand, firms in developed countries may better exploit comparative advantages and become more productive by outsourcing parts of the production process to the emerging economies. On the other hand, this may lead to adjustment costs as domestic workers become unemployed in the short run. Also, developed nation firms may be forced to adjust their product mix in the face of increased competition from emerging economies in the final goods markets. If emerging economies specialize in producing low priced and low-quality goods, one strategy for domestic firms may be to differentiate their products in the quality dimension by using more advanced production techniques and higher skilled workers. The workshop invites both theoretical and empirical papers dealing with these issues.

Format

The workshop will begin in the morning on Friday November 12th and will continue through Saturday afternoon November 13th. The program will include a total of 10-12 papers, with one hour per paper devoted to presentation and open discussion.