In May 2024, Professor Lu Yue, Director of the Research Laboratory, was invited to deliver a keynote speech titled "Trade Frictions and Global Supply Chain Shifts" at the 7th China Forum on Opening-Up and Development, hosted by the Zhang Peigang Institute for Development Studies' Center for Opening-Up and Development and the Free Trade Zone Research Center at Huazhong University of Science and Technology (HUST). The forum was attended by prominent scholars, including Professor Zhang Zhongxiang, Founding Dean of the School of Economics at Tianjin University, Professor Zhang Jianhua, Dean of the School of Economics at HUST, and Professor He Guojun from the Faculty of Business and Economics at the University of Hong Kong.

The first session of the research paper discussion at the 7th China Forum on Opening-Up and Development was successfully held on the morning of May 26, 2024, in Room 106 of the School of Economics. Five speakers were invited to share their latest research, including Professor Lu Yue, Executive Dean of the Academy of Global Innovation and Governance at the University of International Business and Economics and a recipient of a national youth talent award; Professor Song Huasheng from the School of Economics at Zhejiang University; HUST lecturer Zhang Siqi; Assistant Professor Xu Xiaocong from the School of Business at Nanjing University; and Assistant Professor Luo Xuan from the School of Economics and Management at Wuhan University. The session was moderated by Professor Chen Bo from the School of Economics at HUST.

In her keynote report titled "Trade Frictions and Global Supply Chain Shifts," Professor Lu discussed the importance of ensuring the security of industrial and supply chains amid increasing external trade risks, a matter directly tied to high-quality development and the construction of a modern industrial system. Using firm-level global supplier-client relationship data from the FactSet Revere database (2017-2019), the study employed a difference-in-differences (DID) method to analyze the impact of the U.S.-China trade frictions on global supply chain shifts. The results revealed that U.S. companies have gradually reduced cooperation with Chinese firms, possibly due to the dual effects of profit and risk considerations. At the same time, “superstar” supply chain firms with higher levels of R&D and more suppliers were relatively less affected. The study concluded that U.S.-China trade frictions have accelerated the trend toward the localization and securitization of supply chains, a trend that has become increasingly evident.

Professor Song Huasheng presented his research titled "Export Adjustment to Import Protectionism: The Role of Input-Output Linkages in the US-China Trade War." In response to the tariffs imposed by the U.S. on Chinese exports since 2018, China introduced retaliatory tariffs on U.S. imports. Using classified Chinese customs data from January 2017 to December 2019, the study analyzed how Chinese export firms adjusted in response to these tariffs. The results showed that China’s retaliatory tariffs on imports had a vertical spillover effect, leading to a simultaneous decrease in the value and prices of Chinese exports to third markets. The impact of retaliatory tariffs varied across products, export margins, trade patterns, and firm ownership. Mechanism analysis revealed that the decline in export quality played a more significant role than competitive effects in the adjustment process.

Lecturer Zhang Siqi presented her research titled "Assessing the Impacts of Equivalency Agreements in International Organic Trade." Using a BLP (random coefficients logit) model, the study estimated the impact of Organic Equivalency Agreements (OEA) on the market shares of organic agricultural products exported to the U.S., Canada, and Denmark from 2011 to 2019. Based on the Eaton and Kortum (2002) framework, the study assumed that the country with the lowest price would dominate the market, with the price equation influenced by unobserved product-related agricultural endowments and trade costs. The results showed that if 53 non-OEA exporters had signed OEAs with the U.S. in 2017, their simulated market share in the U.S. would have increased from 1.3% to 3.1%.

Assistant Professor Xu Xiaocong presented "Estimating the Pro-competitive Effect and Variety Gains Using Firm-level Data." Previous research has yielded different conclusions due to varying assumptions about utility functions, productivity distributions, and market structures, and few studies have used micro-level data to estimate the pro-competitive effects of trade on welfare. Xu’s study constructed a model to decompose consumer welfare gains from domestic and international trade into productivity gains, pro-competitive effects, and variety gains. Using data from the China Industrial Enterprise Database and Chinese customs data (2000-2013), the study estimated the welfare gains for Chinese consumers from domestic and international trade. Further analysis revealed that while the pro-competitive effect increased consumer welfare, variety effects led to a decrease.

Assistant Professor Luo Xuan presented "How Does Deep Integration Affect Third-Country Innovation: Evidence from China." The study examined the impact of deep integration clauses in Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) on third-country innovation. The findings indicated that exposure to FTA shocks had an overall negative impact on innovation in China’s regions. A heterogeneity analysis showed that labor-intensive industries were the most negatively affected, followed by capital-intensive industries, while technology-intensive industries demonstrated positive effects, reflecting stronger innovation capacity. At the firm level, patent data indicated that only more productive and larger firms engaged in more innovation, highlighting the importance of firm size and productivity in responding to external FTA shocks.

In conclusion, Professor Chen Bo thanked the speakers for their excellent presentations and emphasized that such academic exchange platforms not only broaden the academic horizons of participants but also facilitate intellectual collisions and the integration of ideas, which contribute to the collective progress of the academic community.

Link to the official WeChat account is provided: https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/FvWrWDWDd7XKciM0oJjz_w