Empirical Analysis Of US Trade Deficit From Value Added Perspective

As the most powerful trading country in the world,the United States has maintained trade deficit for a long time.In recent years,the coexistence of huge trade deficits and economic growth is the main feature of this capitalist economy.The issue of trade deficits has become a persistent issue in the formulation of economic and trade policies,as well as in domestic politics.At the same time,the nature of international trade is undergoing significant changes.Due to the advancement of science and technology,the decline in transportation and transportation costs,and the reduction of trade barriers,the transnational production process has been rapidly decentralized.By participating in different production links of products,each country becomes a component of the international production division value chain.Therefore,it is necessary to understand the US trade deficit from the perspective of value-added trade.The contribution of this dissertation is to re-understand the US trade deficit from the perspective of value added.At the same time,it analyzed the impact of protectionist measures such as import tariff policies on the US trade deficit,which has important practical si gnificance.The US trade deficit is the main research object of this dissertation.The research methods mainly include theoretical analysis,statistical analysis and econometric analysis,and comprehensive analysis combining the above methods.The research content is to recalculate the huge US trade deficit from the perspective of value-added trade,and to study its industrial distribution and the effects of tariff policies.Specifically,in the firstly,in order to grasp the overall status of the U.S.trade deficit,the dissertation recalculates the U.S.trade deficit through the value-added trade accounting method.We make a comparative analysis of the US trade deficit under traditional statistics and value-added accounting,including three aspects:scale,industry distribution,and country distribution.Secondly,based on the results of the value-added trade deficit calculation,we calculated two types of indicators:the upstream index and the revealed comparative advantage index calculated by value-added(RCA VA index).On this basis,we conducted a theoretical analysis of the possible impact of the upstream index on the trade deficit,and proposed research hypotheses.Thirdly,based on the previous theoretical analysis,in order to analyze the effect of the division of labor status on the US trade deficit,this dissertation establishes an empirical model at the industrial level to verify the hypotheses proposed earlier.Finally,combining the latest US tariff policy and trade statistics,this dissertation analyzes the effect of tariff policy on the US trade deficit at the product level.This part of research is based on theoretical analysis,and the conclusion of theoretical analysis is verified by difference-in-difference method.The research on the US trade deficit from the perspective of value-added includes three parts.Fisrtly,we analyzed the size and distribution of the US trade deficit under traditional statistical methods.We have summarized the development trend and characteristics of the US trade deficit from two perspectives:industry distribution and country distribution.The second part is the re-calculation of the US trade deficit based on the statistical method of value-added.After introducing the calculation principles and methods,we conduct a basic analysis of the calculation results.The third part is a comparative analysis of the US trade deficit under two statistical methods,starting from the overall scale,industry and country distribution characteristics.The conclusion is that the size of the U.S.trade deficit has significantly decreased under the value-added statistics,and the industry and country distribution characteristics are also different from the deficits under the traditional statistical method.In order to describe the international competitiveness and value chain division of labor of various industries in the United States comprehensively,this dissertation has calculated and analyzed the RCA VA index and upstream index of various industries.Through the calculation and analysis of the RCA VA index,it is concluded that many industries in the United States still have strong comparative advantages.With the expansion of the trade deficit,there has been no downward trend in international competitiveness.The comparative advantage of the US superior industries is on the rise,especially the service industry.Whether it is manufacturing or services,the industries with comparative advantages in the United States are mainly concentrated in knowledge-intensive and capital-intensive.Through the analysis and calculation of the upstream degree index,it is found that the overall upstream degree(downstream degree)index ranking of various industries in the United States is very stable.The length of the US manufacturing and service industry production chain did not change significantly,and the upstream index was relatively stable,with similar trends.The overall upstream index of the manufacturing industry is always higher than that of the service industry,which indicates that the manufacturing process of the manufacturing industry is more decentralized and the production stage is more.Compared with the service industry,the manufacturing industry is relatively upstream,and it is farther from the end use in the global value chain division of labor.According to the factor density analysis of industry classification,we can find that the upstream index of capital-intensive and knowledge-intensive industries is always higher than that of labor-intensive industries.Based on theoretical analysis and index calculation,this dissertation conducts an empirical test on the relationship between the industrial division of labor and the US trade deficit.The data source is the input and output data of the 2016 edition of the WIOD database.The study period was from 2000 to 2014.The fixed-effect and random-effect models were used to examine the impact of the global industrial division of labor on the trade deficit distribution in the United States,and the empirical research was conducted on the effects of global value chain division of labor on the statistical value of the US gross trade deficit and the value-added statistical trade deficit.The upstream degree index was used as the main explanatory variable,and the US industry's total value exports and value-added exports were used as the explanatory variables for verification.This dissertation studies the role of industrial characteristics in the impact of the division of labor on the total value and value-added exports of various industries in the United States.Based on the empirical regression of the industry as a whole,we further classify the research,including classification by industry type(manufacturing and service industry),and classification by industry element density(capital-intensive,knowledge-intensive,and labor-intensive).In order to study the impact of tariff policy on the trade deficit,this dissertation selects the punitive tariff policy imposed by the United States on China in 2018 as the research object.The research method is the double difference method.The main conclusions are as follows:Firstly,theoretical analysis believes that the tariff changes of the Trump administration are almost completely passed on to domestic prices,and the tariffs imposed by the United States are almost entirely borne by American consumers and importers.The decline in the total amount of US imports affected by tariffs is much smaller than the decline in trade volume,because the decline in imports in some tariff-affected sectors is offset by the increase in exports from countries not subject to tariffs(that is,the United States can import goods from countries that are not affected by tariffs).This trade transfer implies a huge impact on global value chains,with import tariffs causing trade to be redirected.Second,the empirical analysis concludes that the punitive tariffs imposed on Chinese products will hinder the increase in the total value of U.S.imports from China and the increase in imports of goods,as compared to the overall import of the United States.The tariffs imposed by the United States on China will reduce U.S.imports from China and hinder the growth of the value of U.S.imports from China.The impact of tariffs on the growth of the overall value of U.S.imports is small,which shows that the punitive tariffs imposed by the U.S.on Chinese imports will only cause trade diversion.Tariffs on China have reduced imports from China and increased imports to other countries without reducing the overall level of U.S.imports.In other words,tariffs have little effect on improving the huge U.S.trade deficit The final chapter concludes by summarizing the dissertation and discussing topics need to be studied.