本土偏好與公平貿易

Home Biasedness and Fair Trade

本文探討了對外國商品的本土偏好態度對貿易的影響，並揭示及分析近年來備受爭議的貿易公平性問題。研究聚焦於快速增長的產業內貿易，這是本土偏好與不公平貿易現象頻發的溫床。本文採用壟斷性競爭模型，強調經濟規模程度及對商品差異化偏好對貿易的影響。雖然心理上對本土商品的偏好會初步導致對外國商品的需求減少，但也透過引發的需求彈性下降，促使相對價格漲幅擴增。因此，正如近期美中雙邊貿易數據所示，我們觀察到進口總額或貿易總值不降反升的現象。本文並進一步模擬與探討本土偏好與貿易的動態關係。

This paper addresses the impact of home-biased attitude toward foreign goods on trade and sheds light on the recent contentious issue of fairness in trade. Focusing on the burgeoning intra-industry trade, which has become a hotbed for home biasedness and unfairness, this study adopts a monopolistic competition model that emphasizes the degree of economic scales and differential preferences for varieties of goods. A decrease in the preference for foreign goods, stemming from psychological home biasedness, leads to reduced consumption and production of these goods. This, in turn, provokes a decrease in demand elasticity, resulting in a greater increase in relative prices. Consequently, we observe an escalation in the total value of imports or trade rather than a decline, as evidenced by the recent bilateral trade between the US and China. The dynamics of home biasedness and trade are further explored and simulated using computational methods.