CURRICULUM VITAE Lei (Jane) Ji Nov 11 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 WEBPAGE https://sites.google.com/site/ncsuleiji/ 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 Dynamic Comparative Advantage, Trade and Growth Chap.3 Trade Policy and Growth: A Schumpeterian Framework John Seater (chair), Pietro Peretto (Duke University), John Lapp, Asli Leblebicioglu CURRENT POSITION Visiting Assistant Professor (Aug 2010 - May 2011) Department of Economics, Old Dominion University 1
PAPERS 1. The Dance of the Dynamics: The Always Interesting and Sometimes Surprising Interplay of Trade and Growth (Original Title: Dynamic Comparative Advantage, Trade and Growth ) With John Seater, Fall 2010, Job Market Paper (submitted to Quarterly Journal o Economics) 2. Endogenous Growth with Heterogeneous Industries, Fall 2010 (to be submitted by Dec.2010) WORKING PAPERS 1. Trade Policy and Growth: A Schumpeterian Framework, Fall 2010 WORK IN PROGRESS 1. Rethinking Directed Technical Change 2. World Income Distribution, with John Seater 3. Dynamic Inefficiency and Policy Implications 4. Informative Middle-man Service and Long Run Growth, with Chienyu Huang 5. Terms of Trade and Economic Growth (Empirical Work) 6. Trade and Technology Transfer (Empirical Work) with John Seater PRESENTATIONS Invited Conferences The Dance of the Dynamics: The Always Interesting and Sometimes Surprising Interplay of Trade and Growth (Original Title: Dynamic Comparative Advantage, Trade and Growth ) 1) Southern Economic Association Conference, Atlanta, Nov.2010 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. The Dance of the Dynamics: The Always Interesting and Sometimes Surprising Interplay of Trade and Growth (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 Dr. 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
ABSTRACTS (Papers can be downloaded from https://sites.google.com/site/ncsuleiji/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 their products ( quality improvement ) and maximize profits, while entrants invent new varieties ( variety expansion ). I prove that firms in the same industry are symmetric, while firms in different industries are not symmetric and 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, as in Peretto (2004). (2) I allow spillovers across industries. The return in to R&D in one industry is diminishing, given the quality spillover from the other industry. (3) The 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. The Dance of the Dynamics: The Always Interesting and Sometimes Surprising Interplay of Trade and Growth (Original Title: Dynamic Comparative Advantage, Trade and Growth ). With John Seater, Job Market Paper (submitted to QJE) We study the interaction of trade and economic growth solely through the channel of comparative advantage. Our model excludes scale effects or direct technology transfer, the two usual channels in the literature through which trade affects growth. The model has tractable transition dynamics, allowing a full characterization of the adjustment path and also of trade s welfare effects. We find that trade affects growth in ways generally not previously discussed and that growth affects trade in ways never previously explored. Comparative advantage and the trading pattern are determined endogenously. Endogeneity of production, R&D, and trading patterns leads to results quite different from those found in most of the related literature. Trade may increase or decrease the level of initial output of either country because of an externality absent from static models. Independently of the initial level effect, trade may increase or decrease the balanced growth rate of either country. The possibility of a decrease arises from a type of dynamic inefficiency. Trade leads to a stable world income distribution in some cases, but in other cases leads to an unstable and perhaps even degenerate distribution. Trade leads to effective technology transfer, with a country s growth rate being the same as if that country had adopted its trading partner s R&D technology even though no technology transfer ever occurs, a result reminiscent of factor price equalization. That also calls into question the interpretation of many empirical studies of technology transfer. Our model explains in a single framework several observed phenomena usually analyzed separately. Finally, in sharp contrast to standard static results, trade may raise or lower social welfare in the short run, the long run, or both. 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 of 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 the tariff, only the profit tax has a negative effect on growth rate, and other taxes and the tariff only have level effects. This is because endogenous 5
firm entry kills the negative growth effect of other types of taxes. Endogenous entry solves the criticism of the first generation growth model in Stokey and Rebelo (1995), which is that that model predicts a large effect of taxes on growth but that the data show no such effect. All taxes and tariffs reduce welfare, even if the government subsidizes in-house R&D with tax revenue. Work in Progress 1. Rethinking Directed Technical Change I discuss the underlying reason for skill biased technological change, which often is suggested as a cause of 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 model 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. My results suggest that directed technical change cannot explain long-run wage inequality between skilled and unskilled labor. 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 as well as on the balanced growth path. 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, countries' growth rates differ everywhere except at an unstable equilibrium point of balanced growth, which means the world income distribution must be changing whenever 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 the 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