国际分工与美中贸易逆差：以iPhone为例

How the iPhone Widens the US Trade Deficits with PRC

本文以iPhone为例,来阐明即使那些由美国公司发明的高科技产品,也可能不会增加美国出口,反而会扩大美国贸易逆差。2009年中美iPhone贸易逆差约为19亿美元。空前的全球化、组织良好的全球生产网络、迅速发展的国际分工以及廉价的运输成本,都可能影响跨国公司如Apple公司的经营决策,而这些经营决策可能直接恶化美国的贸易逆差。全球生产网络与高度专业化的生产过程,明显改变了贸易形态:像中国这样的发展中国家现在出口iPhone这样的高科技产品,而像美国这样的工业化国家则进口原本由自己发明的高科技产品。此外,传统贸易统计方法无法识别制造业产品价值的跨国分配,极度夸大了被跨国公司作为出口平台的国家与目标市场国家之间的双边贸易失衡。

In this paper, we use the iPhone as a case to show that even high-tech products invented by the United States （US） companies will not increase the US exports, but on the contrary exacerbate the US trade deficits. The iPhone contributed US $1.9 billion to the US trade deficit with PRC. Unprecedented globalization, well organized global production networks, repaid development of cross-country production fragmentation, and low transportation costs all contribute to rational firms such as Apple making business decisions that contributed directly to the US trade deficit. Global production networks and highly specialized production processes apparently reverse conventional trade patterns so that developing countries such as PRC export high-tech goods-like the iPhone while industrialized countries such as the US imports high-tech goods they themselves invented. In addition, conventional trade statistics fail to identify the distribution of the value chains of manufacture products cross countries, thus greatly inflate bilateral trade imbalances between a country used as export-platform by multinational firms and its destination countries.