This dissertation consists of three essays. The first essay examines the effects of tax differentials on the trade balance across countries. Given that intrafirm trade accounts for the sizable share of the world's international trade, it is expected that income-shifting activities of multinational firms can bias the trade balance in many countries. Specifically, an increase in the relative tax liability in one country is expected to decrease the trade balance of that country. Using proxies to the effective tax liability of 19 OECD countries, the cointegrating regressions show significantly negative relationships between tax differentials and the trade balance among relatively small industrial countries.; The second essay asks whether the empirically observed home biases in international trade are accounted for by a theoretical model. It has been pointed out that trade among individual Canadian provinces is much larger than the trade between individual Canadian provinces and individual U.S. states. There is a similar tendency in the trade among the OECD member countries. Obstfeld and Rogoff (2000) claim that such a bias can be explained if one takes into account the interaction between transaction costs and the elasticity of substitution. This study tests their claim using a dynamic general equilibrium model where agents pay proportional transaction costs. The simulation results show that the bias levels generated by the plausible values for transaction cost and elasticity are not particularly inconsistent with the observed levels in the US-Canada relationship.; The third essay tests a version of international real business cycle model aimed at examining the effect on the exchange-rate volatility of market segmentation generated by a trade friction across countries. Obstfeld and Rogoff (2000) argue that segmentation in international goods market can explain the empirically observed real exchange-rate volatility. In this study, a trade cost in goods market combined with income heterogeneity of consumers endogenously generates market segmentation by preventing a fraction of consumers from participating in international trade. Under such a circumstance, the volatility of exchange rate actually rises, but the volatility is still below the observed reality, suggesting that trade cost alone cannot explain the anomalous exchange-rate behaviors.
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机译：本文由三篇论文组成。第一篇文章探讨了税收差异对各国贸易平衡的影响。鉴于公司内部贸易在世界国际贸易中占相当大的份额，预计跨国公司的收入转移活动可能会使许多国家的贸易平衡出现偏差。具体而言，一国相对应纳税额的增加预计将减少该国的贸易差额。利用对19个经合组织国家有效税收义务的代理，协整回归显示相对较小的工业国家之间的税收差异与贸易平衡之间存在显着的负相关关系。第二篇文章询问，是否通过理论模型解释了根据经验观察到的国际贸易中的本国偏见。已经指出，加拿大各省之间的贸易比加拿大各省和美国各州之间的贸易大得多。经合组织成员国之间的贸易也有类似趋势。 Obstfeld and Rogoff（2000）认为，如果考虑交易成本和替代弹性之间的相互作用，就可以解释这种偏见。这项研究使用动态的一般均衡模型测试了他们的要求，代理人按比例支付交易费用。仿真结果表明，交易成本和弹性的合理值所产生的偏差水平与美国-加拿大关系中观察到的水平并没有特别矛盾。第三篇文章测试了国际真实商业周期模型的一个版本，该模型旨在研究各国贸易摩擦对市场细分的汇率波动性的影响。奥布斯费尔德和罗格夫（Obstfeld and Rogoff，2000）认为，国际商品市场的细分可以解释根据经验观察到的实际汇率波动。在这项研究中，商品市场的贸易成本与消费者的收入异质性相结合，通过阻止一部分消费者参与国际贸易，内生地产生了市场细分。在这种情况下，汇率的波动实际上会增加，但波动率仍低于观察到的现实，这表明仅贸易成本就不能解释汇率的异常行为。
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