中國人民大學經濟學院          國際經濟學Seminar      
    
      題目：Judicial Quality, Incomplete Contract, and Quality of Trade          報告人：崔曉敏 博士          時間：2017年5月27日（周六）14:00-16:00          地點：公教2221                                      內容提要：This paper studies how judicial quality affects average quality of trade for industries with different dependence on contract enforcement environment. By alleviating hold-up problem, better judicial quality lowers production costs relatively more for contract-intensive industries that intensively use relationship- specific inputs. We build a simple model to incorporate hold-up problem and the consequent relatively higher input costs for contract-intensive industries into a firm heterogeneous model with endogenous quality choice. Our theory suggests that better judicial quality does not necessarily raise average export quality for contract-intensive industries relatively more due to two offsetting effects: quality upgrading of existing exporting firms and increasing entry of less- productive firms. In contrast, better judicial quality always raises average import quality relatively more for contract-intensive industries since only foreign firms with high enough productivities are able to compete in that market due to pro-competitive effect. By using bilateral unit value and quality index constructed by Feenstra and Romalis (2014), as well as contract intensity from Nunn (2007), we empirically con.rm the predictions regarding judicial quality’s impact on average quality          of trade. Our results are robust to measurement issues, potential confounding factors, and possible reverse causality.                     報告人簡介：崔曉敏，中國社會科學院世界經濟與政治研究所助理研究員，北京大學國家發展研究院博士，主要研究方向：國際貿易和發展經濟學的應用研究。論文曾發表在《經濟學（季刊）》、《金融研究》、《國際經濟評論》、《學術月刊》等雜志上，參與撰寫英文專著Production Networks in Southeast Asia；作為主要參與人，在研國家社會科學基金重點項目1項、國家自然科學基金面上項目1項、東盟和東亞研究院-聯合國貿易和發展組織“中國非關稅壁壘”項目1項。                     中國人民大學經濟學院          2017年5月26日