CURRICULUM VITAE Lei (Jane) Ji Oct 25 th, 2010 ADDRESS CELL PHONE (919) 946-3519 Department of Economics Old Dominion University Norfolk, VA 23529 USA Work: (757) 683-3496 E-MAIL lei.ji2004@gmail.com WEBPAG https://sites.google.com/a/ncsu.edu/leiji/home VISA STATUS U.S. Permanent Resident EDUCATION Ph.D. Economics, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC, Dec 2010 GPA 4.0/4.0 M.A. Economics, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC, May 2005 GPA 4.0/4.0 B.S. International Finance, Sun Yat-Sen University, Guangzhou, China, July 2002 AREAS OF SPECIALIZATION Primary Field: Economic Growth; International Trade Secondary Field: Macroeconomics; Economic Development; Econometrics DISSERTATION Title: Committee: Dynamic Comparative Advantage, Trade, and Schumpeterian Growth Chap.1 Endogenous Growth with Heterogeneous Industries Chap.2 Comparative Advantage, Dynamic Inefficiency and Technology Equalization Chap.3 Trade Policy and Growth: A Schumpeterian Framework John Seater (chair), Pietro Peretto, John Lapp, Asli Leblebicioglu CURRENT POSITION Visiting Assistant Professor (Aug 2010 - May 2011) Department of Economics, Old Dominion University 1
PAPERS 1. Comparative Advantage, Dynamic Inefficiency and Technology Equalization With John Seater, Fall 2010, Job Market Paper (submitted to QJE) 2. Endogenous Growth with Heterogeneous Industries, Fall 2010 WORKING PAPERS 1. Trade Policy and Growth: A Schumpeterian Framework, Fall 2010 2. World Income Distribution, with John Seater, Fall 2010 WORK IN PROGRESS 1. Rethinking Directed Technical Change 2. Dynamic Inefficiency and Policy Implications 3. Informative Middle-man Service and Long Run Growth, with Chienyu Huang 4. Terms of Trade and Economic Growth 5. Trade and Technology Transfer PRESENTATIONS Invited Conferences Comparative Advantage, Dynamic Inefficiency and Technology Equalization (Original Title: Dynamic Comparative Advantage, Trade and Growth ) 1) Southern Economic Association Conference, Atlanta, Nov.2010 (Expected) 2) DEGIT Conference, Frankfurt, Germany, Sep. 2010 3) Taipei International Conference on Growth, Trade and Dynamic, Taipei, June 2010 Other Presentations 1. Rethinking Directed Technical Change Triangle Dynamic Macroeconomics Workshop, Duke University, Sep. 2010 2. Comparative Advantage, Dynamic Inefficiency and Technology Equalization (Original Title: Dynamic Comparative Advantage, Trade and Growth ) 1) Triangle Dynamic Macroeconomics Workshop, Duke University, Dec. 2009 2) Macro/Trade Workshop, North Carolina State University, Sep. 2009 3. Endogenous Growth with Heterogeneous Industries 1) Triangle Dynamic Macroeconomics Workshop, Duke University, Jan. 2009 2) Macro/Trade Workshop, North Carolina State University, Dec. 2008 2
TEACHING EXPERIENCE Instructor, International Trade (Master Level) Spring 2011 (Expected), Old Dominion University Instructor, Principles of Microeconomics Fall 2010, Old Dominion University Instructor, Principles of Macroeconomics Fall 2010, Old Dominion University Fall 2007 Spring 2009, North Carolina State University Teaching Assistant, Principles of Economics Fall 2006, Spring 2007, North Carolina State University Teaching Assistant, Environmental Economics Fall 2005, Spring 2006, North Carolina State University OTHER WORK EXPERIENCE Journalist Southern Metropolis Daily, Guangzhou, China, Aug 2002 - Aug 2003 Worked on economic growth under globalization, book and movie reviews Internship Actuarial Department, AIA, Guangzhou, China, July 2001 - Sep 2001 Calculated Premium rate, Reserve, Cash value of the existing products by FoxPro ACADEMIC HONORS AND AWARDS Membership in Phi Kappa Phi, 2010 SEA Conference Graduate Student Award, 2010 BB&T Research Fellowship, North Carolina State University, Fall 2009 Fall 2010 Graduate Student Assistantship, North Carolina State University, Fall 2005 Fall 2009 SKILLS Computer Skills: SAS, STATA, MATLAB, LaTeX, FoxPro Languages: English (Fluent); Mandarin (Native); Cantonese (Native) 3
REFERENCES Dr. John J. Seater, Professor, Department of Economics, North Carolina State University Box 8110, Raleigh NC 27695 USA Phone: (919) 513-2697 Email: john_seater@ncsu.edu Pietro F. Peretto, Professor, Department of Economics, Duke University Box 90097, Durham NC 27708-0097 USA Phone: (919) 660-1807 E-mail: peretto@econ.duke.edu Dr. John Lapp, Professor, Department of Economics, North Carolina State University Box 8110, Raleigh NC 27695 USA Phone: (919) 513-2877 Email: john_lapp@ncsu.edu 4
ABSTRACT (Papers can be downloaded from https://sites.google.com/a/ncsu.edu/leiji/research ) Dissertation Chapters Chap 1. Endogenous Growth with Heterogeneous Industries A Schumpeterian growth model with heterogeneous industries in the intermediate goods sector is constructed. These industries differ in unit costs, R&D productivities, fixed operating costs and market sizes. In each industry, incumbents undertake in-house research and development (R&D) to improve the quality of their product. I prove that firms in the same industry are symmetric, while firms in different industries make different price and R&D decisions. Entry and exit in both industries are endogenous and free. This model has the following features: (1) Growth is driven by in-house R&D, but not variety expansion, following the same mechanism of Peretto (2004). (2) I allow spillovers across industries. The return in R&D in one industry is diminishing, given the quality spillover from the other industry. (3) Two heterogeneous industries grow at different rates during the transition to the balanced growth path. (4) Because of instantaneous entry, the balanced growth rate neither depends on the scale of the economy nor the unit costs of production. It only depends on R&D productivities and fixed operating costs. Chap 2. Comparative Advantage, Dynamic Inefficiency and Technology Equalization With John Seater, Job Market Paper (submitted to QJE) We study the effects of trade on economic growth in a Schumpeterian framework. The model excludes scale effects and technology transfer, the two usual channels in the literature through which trade affects growth, leaving only comparative advantage. Comparative advantage and the trading pattern are determined endogenously. Endogeneity of production and trading patterns leads to results quite different from those found in most of the related literature. Trade need not increase initial output of either country because of an externality absent from static models. Irrespective of what happens to initial output, trade may increase the balanced growth rate but also may decrease it because of a trade-off between productive efficiency and R&D efficiency. Our model has tractable transition dynamics, which we describe completely. We show that trade leads to a stable world income distribution in some cases, but in other cases leads to an unstable and perhaps even degenerate distribution. In some cases, trade's effect on a country's growth rate is the same as if that country had adopted its trading partner's R&D technology, even though no technology transfer ever occurs. Chap 3. Trade Policy and Growth: A Schumpeterian Framework I discuss the effect of tariffs and taxes/subsidies on growth and welfare. Trade need not increase welfare because trade need not increase either the level output due to an externality across industries, or the growth rate due to a possible dynamic inefficiency. I assume there is a tariff that is not high enough to change the trading pattern. Among all the taxes (income tax, consumption tax, and corporate profit tax) and tariff, only the profit tax has a negative effect on growth rate, and other taxes and tariff only have level effects. This is because an endogenous firm entry in this model kills the negative growth effect of other types of taxes. Endogenous entry in this model solves the criticism of the first generation growth model in Stokey and Rebelo (1995), which shows no significant growth rate effect of income tax. All taxes and tariffs reduce welfare based on our framework, even if the government subsidizes in-house R&D with tax revenue. 5
Work in Progress 1. Rethinking Directed Technical Change I discuss the underlying reason for the skill biased technological change, which is a cause of the income inequality between skilled and unskilled labor. According to Acemolgu (1998, 2002b), a change in the direction of technological innovation towards those with greater skills leads to a permanent rise in wage inequality. Technical change is biased towards the factor that ensures the larger returns. The underlying assumption of his models is that each intermediate good firm faces the whole supply of skilled/unskilled workers as its individual market. However, many contributions to the empirical IO literature, summarized by Cohen & Levin (1989), show that the incentives for innovation are related to individual firm size but not the whole population size. Based on those empirical results, my model provides a framework to revisit the incentives for directed technical change. I show that directed technical change is a temporary phenomenon, and I also provide the transitional dynamics for such a change. 2. World Income Distribution, with John Seater We discuss world income distribution under globalization. We find that all countries grow at the same rate anywhere inside the region of complete specialization, not just on the balanced growth path; so the world income distribution is stable along transition paths, too, provided the world is inside the region of complete specialization. This result is different from Acemolgu & Ventura (2002), who find a stable income distribution only on the balanced growth path under complete specialization. Furthermore, we show that in the region of incomplete specialization, except at an unstable equilibrium point of balanced growth, countries' growth rates differ, which means the world income distribution must be changing as long as the world is in the region of incomplete specialization. In part of the region of incomplete specialization, countries eventually cross into the region of complete specialization and then converge to the world balanced growth path, but in another part of the region of incomplete specialization, countries' growth rates go asymptotically to a constant difference with one country perpetually growing at a faster rate than the other. We are also going to provide empirical tests for our model. 3. Informative Middle-man Service and Long Run Growth, with Chienyu Huang The paper discusses the long run effect of two types of informative middleman service in a second generation Schumpeterian growth model. To overcome information costs, intermediate goods firms supply two types of informative middleman service in order to make their products more accessible in the market. One helps the brand new product attract new consumers, such as advertising; the other helps the existing product keep its existing consumers, such as technical support, repair or maintenance. In a first generation growth model, the middle-man service has a growth rate effect; whereas in our model, endogenous entry offsets such an impact on growth, and leaves only an output level effect. 6