Progress 02/01/14 to 01/31/19
Outputs
Target Audience:The target audiences reached this year include the academic peers/researchers who reviewed the paper on analysis of determinants of U.S. exports of worn textile articles that was submitted to a journal; researchers and corporate and government leaders with interest in textile-related environmental issues who read the Ecotextile News article about the study; and students, teachers, researchers, and company representatives who read the NIFA log about the study. Changes/Problems:
Nothing Reported
What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?
Nothing Reported
How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?Results have been disseminated in the NIFA blog, my Virginia Public Radio interview, and the Ecotextile News article about the research. The NIFA blog and the radio interview disseminated the results to the general public, and the Ecotextile News article disseminated results to researchers and corporate nd government leaders with interest in textile-related environmental issues. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?
Nothing Reported
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
I have obtained all available data on the exports of worn clothing and other worn textile articles (worn textile articles) from the U.S. over 1989-2018 and from each U.S. state over 2002-2018 along with the data on each chosen independent variable. Characterization of the U.S. exports for Objective 1 showed highlights such as growth in the exports with most to low-income countries as a group, especially in Africa, although Canada was sent more of the exports than any other single country and the exports to high-income countries in general have grown in recent years. Characterization of the exports of U.S. states for Objective 2 showed Canada among the top destinations of most states' exports in most years. Texas was the top export state each year. California and New York ranked 2nd and 3rd or vice versa; Florida often ranked 4th. Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and Washington were often in the top ten export states. Those patterns suggest some possible determinants of U.S. states' exports of worn textile articles: whether each state has a seaport and borders Canada or Mexico or the lengths of its ocean shoreline and borders with Canada and Mexico. Canada's prominence as a destination for U.S. exports of worn textile articles led me to explore reasons. I found in a U.S. Agency for International Development report that a key source of the exports to east African countries, the main African destinations, is the goods' transshipment from the U.S. through Canada. I found online a Canadian company that imports used clothes from the U.S. In emails with its president, he told me that east African immigrants in Canada commonly transship used clothes from the U.S. to east African countries. I have planned since this study began to analyze effects of U.S. states' foreign-born populations on their exports of worn textile articles because published research has shown that states' foreign-born populations positively affect their overall exports. The anecdotal information above supports this analysis. I have worked with colleagues to achieve Objective 3: to analyze determinants of U.S. exports of worn textile articles to destination countries. We submitted to a journal a paper on this analysis we completed using 1989-2012 data on the total value of these exports to 163 destination (importing) countries and on characteristics of each of them: its total population, per-capita gross domestic product (GDP), and tariff rate on worn textile articles, the distance between its capital city and Washington, D.C., whether the country is landlocked and has English as an official language, and whether it is classified as a low-, middle-, or high-income country based on its per-capita GDP. Key results are 0.71 and 1.55 percent rise in the exports to low-income and middle-income countries respectively per 1 percent increase in their per-capita GDPs; and 2.16 and 12.92 percent decline in the exports to middle- and high-income countries respectively per 1 percent increase in their tariffs on the goods. These results have clear implications for government policymakers in those two groups of countries. The average tariffs on used-clothing imports of middle-income and high-income countries in our sample are 20.4 percent and 6.0 percent respectively. Policymakers wanting to promote (further deter) U.S. exports of worn-textile articles to their countries should lower (raise) the tariffs on the goods, although the results above indicate that each 1 percent reduction (increase) in the tariff will induce greater growth (decline) in the exports to high-income than middle-income countries. Policymakers in those countries would need to weigh firms' and consumers' interests to decide whether to retain extant tariff rates or to raise or lower the tariffs on worn textile articles from the U.S. Because our paper on this analysis was rejected for publication in the journal, we revised it and submitted it to another journal. Because it was rejected for that journal, we have identified yet another journal for which we are revising the paper. I have made progress toward achieving Objective 4: to analyze determinants of U.S. states' exports of worn textile articles to destination countries. The state-level export data show no exports to 20-25 percent of the 240 listed destination countries each year over 2002-2018. This high proportion of zero-export observations can cause biased estimates of regression coefficients but deleting these observations would also bias the estimates. Worn textile articles said to be exported from some states, especially non-border states, are likely donated to charities in these states and then trucked to states with seaports for export. I will aggregate states' exports by the 4 U.S. Census regions or the 9 Census divisions because U.S. foreign-born data are available for each of those regions and divisions and the whole U.S., not by state. A side note is that Census data on the total U.S. foreign-born population are not available for 2002-2018 but 2002-2018 data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics Current Population Survey (CPS) are available on the U.S. foreign-born civilian noninstitutional population and the U.S. foreign-born civilian labor force, aged 16 and over in each. I will decide which of those types of CPS data to use in the analysis. Given the aggregation of states' exports by Census regions or divisions, I examined U.S. Census data, available since 2003, on worn textile articles exported yearly from each of about 50 U.S. ports to see whether each Census region and division has a major export port for these goods before I decide to aggregate by region or division. Each does. For example, the top regional ports are: Northeast, NYC; Midwest, Detroit; West, LA; and South, Houston-Galveston. I worked with colleagues to achieve Objective 5: to analyze determinants of the supply of U.S. exports of worn textile articles. We measured the export supply in our study as the total annual value of the exports over 2002-2012. The independent variables include the average U.S. price of new apparel; total U.S. personal expenditure for apparel; the total income of the fifth (the highest) U.S. income quintile (to measure income distribution); the U.S. unemployment rate; the total U.S. population aged less than 18; a time-trend variable to capture fashion change; and dummy variables for each quarter per year to account for factors such as large spending on apparel in the fourth-quarter holiday season and consumer disposal of apparel in other quarters to free closet space for new clothes. The analysis indicated that the greater the fashion change and new-apparel price and the less the unemployment rate and fifth-quintile income, the more the export supply. Several communications about the study help fulfill the purpose to both analyze and provide information on determinants of U.S. exports of worn textile articles. S. Elliott, NIFA senior writer/editor, asked me 4/25/18 to answer questions about the study for a NIFA blog about it. The blog posted 5/22/18 led to readers' questions (5/31/18) about recycling and exporting used textiles; a request by M. Pope, a Virginia Public Radio reporter, to interview me (aired 5/25/18) about the study; a 6/5/18 request by E. Warshaw, owner of a Pennsylvania textile-recycling firm and member of the Industry Trade Advisory Committee of the Sustainable Materials and Recycled Textiles (SMART) trade association of firms with operations involving textile-related environmental issues, to keep SMART informed about the study; and a 6/5/18 request by D. Styles, asst. editor of the British Ecotextile News, that I answer questions about the study, after which he wrote an Ecotextile News article (August/September 2018, pp. 48-49) about it. Ecotextile News is aimed at researchers and corporate and government leaders with textile-related environmental interests.
Publications
- Type:
Journal Articles
Status:
Submitted
Year Published:
2019
Citation:
Farris, J., Norton, M., Peterson, E., Grant, J., & Norum. P., Determinants of U.S. Exports of Used Clothing and Textiles, Journal of Fashion Marketing and Management, submitted.
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Progress 10/01/17 to 09/30/18
Outputs
Target Audience:The target audiences reached by the project efforts this year include the following: the undergraduate student who assisted with data processing, including preliminary data analysis for the project; the academic peers/researchers who reviewed our paper on analysis of determinants of U.S. exports of used clothing and textiles that we submitted to a journal and who read the NIFA blog and the Ecotexties News article about the study; leaders of textile recycling and other companies or other types of organizations in the textile and apparel industry, such as retail and manufacturing companies and charities that sell donated used clothing and textiles in their stores or to recycling companies, who read the NIFA blog and the Ecotextiles News article; and the general public who read the NIFA blog and heard the Virginia Public Radio broadcast about the study. Changes/Problems:
Nothing Reported
What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?The project provided opportunities for the professional development of the undergraduate student who assisted with preliminary analysis of the research data on U.S. states' exports of used clothing and textiles to destination countries. The student had opportunities to learn the export patterns to various destination countries and the relative magnitudes of states' exports, including differences among the states and chamges over time. In addition, the student had opportunities for increased understanding of Excel operations. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?Results have been disseminated in the NIFA blog, my Virginia Public Radio interview, and the Ecotextile News article about the research. The NIFA blog and the radio interview disseminated results to the general public, and the Ecotextile News article disseminated results to researchers and corporate and government leaders with interests in environmental issues related to textiles. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?We plan to finish revising our paper on the analysis of determinants of U.S. exports of used clothing and textiles and to submit the revised paper to a journal we identify. We also plan to complete the development of the data required to analyze determinants of the exports of used clothing and textiles from the four U.S. Census regions or the nine U.S. Census divisions, to conduct this analysis, and to write and submit to a journal a manuscript on this analysis.
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
We previously reported completion of Objective 1 and progress toward completing Objectives 2- 4. We made further progress in 2018 toward completing Objectives 2-4. The further progress on Objectives 2 and 4 includes expanding our state-export data from only 2002-2016 by obtaining the 2002-2017 data; additional preliminary analysis of the state-export data; and additional decisions on the precise variables for analyzing the state-export determinants. Since the project began, states' foreign-born populations have been a planned independent variable in analyzing the state-export determinants. Upon finding that U.S. Census data on states' foreign-born populations are available for only 2009-2017, we turned to the Bureau of Labor Statistics Current Population Survey (CPS) data and found that 2002-2017 CPS data on the foreign-born civilian-institutionalized and employed populations are available for each of the four U.S. Census regions and nine U.S. Census divisions, not individual states due to CPS sampling limitations. Thus to include the foreign-born data, we need to aggregate by these regions or divisions the state-export data and the data for each independent variable to analyze the state-export determinants. We have known since the project began that African countries, as a group, are the main state-export destinations, but in 2018, we examined the state-export destinations in more detail than previously. Because the state-export data show no exports to 20-25 percent of the 240 listed destination countries per year over 2002-2017, we have begun to examine the export patterns to see whether each zero-destination country was sent no exports over the whole period or in only some years and, if the latter, whether abrupt year-to-year changes occurred that may warrant inclusion of independent variables (e.g., on altered policies) to help account for the changes. As we noted in 2017, most of the top-ten export states have ocean coastlines and each of the top-three export states borders Canada or Mexico, implying the usefulness of including variables such as whether each state borders an ocean and/or Canada or Mexico, or alternatively the length of each state's ocean shoreline and/or its border with Canada or Mexico. The inclusion of such variables, albeit for Census regions or divisions, is also supported by our finding that Canada was by far U.S. states' major export market over 2002-2017. Japan was sent the second most exports but less than half those to Canada. The findings on Canada and Japan align with the general rise in states' exports to high-income countries over 2002-2017, although various middle-income or low-income countries (e.g., Chile, Guatemala, India, Tanzania) follow Japan in export amounts states sent them per year over 2002-2017. This set of export patterns supports inclusion of variables on destination countries' levels of economic development, as we did to analyze determinants of U.S. exports of used clothing and textiles. A series of unanticipated public communications about the project in 2018 augmented the progress on Objectives 3 and 4 and fulfillment of the project's overall purpose to both analyze and provide information on determinants of U.S. exports of worn clothing and other worn textile articles to destination countries. The communications began when S. Elliott, NIFA senior writer/editor, asked me 4/25/18 to answer questions about the research and related issues so he could write a NIFA blog about them. The blog posted online 5/22/18 led to readers' questions (5/31/18) about how to provide used textiles for recycling or export; a request by M. Pope, a Virginia Public Radio reporter, to interview me (aired 5/25/18) about the research and related issues; a 6/5/18 request by E. Warshaw, owner of a Pennsylvania textile-recycling company and a member of the Industry Trade Advisory Committee of the Sustainable Materials and Recycled Textiles (SMART) trade association of firms with operations involving environmental issues in textile products (e.g., exporting and recycling used textile products), to keep SMART informed about our project; and a 6/5/18 request by D. Styles, assistant editor of the British Ecotextile News, for me to answer several questions about the research and related issues, after which my answers were the basis of an Ecotextile News article (August/September 2018, pp. 48-49) he wrote about the study. Ecotextile News is aimed at researchers and corporate and government leaders with interests in textile-related environmental areas (e.g., textile waste and recycling, textile-manufacturing pollution). Lastly, given a journal's 2017 rejection of our paper on the analysis of determinants of U.S. exports of used clothing and textiles, we revised the paper and submitted it to another journal in 2018 for Objective 3. Because the other journal rejected the revised paper, we have begun to further revise it, using the reviewers' suggestions for revision, to submit the paper to a third journal we identify.
Publications
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Progress 10/01/16 to 09/30/17
Outputs
Target Audience:The target audiences reached by the project efforts this year include undergraduate and graduate students who assisted with the project, as well as academic peers/researchers who reviewed the paper on our analysis of the determinats of U.S. exports of worn clothng and textiles that was submitted to a journal. Changes/Problems:
Nothing Reported
What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?The project provided opportunities for the professional development ofundergaduate and graduate students in the collection and analysis of the research data on the exports of used clothing and textiles from the United States as a whole and from individual U.S. states and on independent variables that may affect the exports. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?Results of our analysis of determinants of U.S. exports of used clothing and textiles were disseminated to educators and researchers through their review of a paper we submitted to a journal on this analysis. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?We plan to finish revising and submitthe paper on our analysis of determinants of U.S. exports of used clothing and textiles.We also plan to make final decisions on the manner of aggregating the state-export data for at least 2002-2016 and on the independent variables to use in analyzing determinants of the exports of used clothing and textiles from individual U.S. states. In addition, we plan to conduct this analysis and draft a paper on the results.
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
We previously reported completion of Objective 1 and progress toward completing Objectives 2, 3, and 5. We made further progress in 2017 toward completing Objective 3 and made progress toward completing Objective 4. The further progress toward completing Objective 3 was finishing and submittinga paperdrafted in 2016 on the analysis of determinants of the U.S. exports. We finished the paper by formulating a section on impacts of the analysis results, estimated regression coefficients with each the percentage change in the total value of U.S. exports of worn clothing and textiles per one-percent change in another variable of interest in natural-logarithm form. Some results indicate that the U.S. exports to low-income and middle-income countries will increase 0.58 percent and 1.50 percent respectively per one-percent growth in the per-capita GDPs in the countries. These results suggest that the best growth prospects for the U.S. exports are to middle-income countries followed by low-income countries as they undergo further economic development, thereby increasing the per-capita GDPs in the countries. U.S. government officials could promote the exports to those two groups of countries to build on the high percentage of past exports to them. Of the importing countries in our sample, those were the destinations of 72 percent of the yearly U.S. exports of worn-textile articles on average over 1989-2012. The results above reflect increased exports to such countries as growth occurred in the per-capita GDPs in the countries: four percent and three percent per year on average in respectively the middle-income and low-income countries in our sample over 1989-2012. A key way that U.S. government officials could promote U.S. exports of worn-textile articles is to negotiate preferential trade agreements (PTAs) with such countries that include provisions for member countries to reduce the tariffs on their imports of the articles from each other to a degree on par with the United States. The analysis results also indicate that U.S. exports of these goods to middle-income and high-income countries will decline 2.18 percent and 12.96 percent respectively per one-percent increase in the bilateral ad valorem equivalent tariff rates the countries apply to the goods. These results have clear implications for government policymakers in those two groups of countries. The average ad valorem equivalent tariff rates on used-clothing imports of middle-income and high-income countries in our sample are 20.4 percent and 6.0 percent respectively. Policymakers who wish to promote (further deter) U.S. exports of worn-textile articles to their countries should lower (raise) the tariffs on the goods, although the results above indicate that each one-percent reduction (increase) in the tariff rate will induce greater growth (decline) in the exports to high-income than middle-income countries. Policymakers in those countries would need to weigh the interests of various groups to decide whether to retain extant tariff rates or to raise or reduce the tariffs on used clothing and textiles from the United States. Governments impose tariffs or other restraints on their countries' imports of such goods to mainly protect domestic textile and apparel producers from competition with foreign suppliers of used products. Consumers are the main beneficiaries of imported worn clothing and textiles as the imports commonly provide fashionable clothing in more variety and better quality at lower prices than available new clothing. Import firms favor unrestrained imports of worn-textile articles to meet demand for the goods. Textile and apparel production has largely shifted from high-income to low-income and middle-income countries and is now a major export source for many countries of the latter types and increasingly a source of domestically produced products in the middle-income type. Yet, governments of high-income importing countries in our sample may be like the U.S. government in facing pressure from the remaining domestic textile and apparel producers to restrain their countries' clothing and textile imports. The same duties apply to U.S. imports of both new and used clothing and textiles intended for sale within U.S. borders. The average ad valorem tariffs on U.S. textile and apparel imports from other members of the World Trade Organization (WTO), the main U.S. trade partners, are respectively 7.5 percent and 10.8 percent in the absence of U.S. PTAs with other WTO members that allow duty-free U.S. imports from them. Those U.S. tariffs exceed the 6.0 percent average tariff on used-clothing imports of high-income importing countries in our sample. Thus, government officials in the United States may lack leverage to persuade those in any such country to lower the tariff on worn-textile articles from the United States without trade concessions such as reduced tariffs on most or all U.S. imports from the country. The 20.4 percent average tariff on used-clothing imports of middle-income countries in our sample may be to protect domestic textile and apparel producers from foreign competition. If so, policymakers in any such country may resist tariff reduction on worn-textile articles from the United States unless perhaps the U.S. government offers trade concessions such as lowering tariffs on most or all U.S. imports from the country. Because the paper on our analysis of determinants of U.S. exports of these products that we submitted to a journal in 2017 was rejected for that journal, we are revisingthe paper for submission to another journal.The progress in 2017 toward accomplishing Objective 4 involved consideration of the precise variables to use in analyzing the determinants of U.S. exports of worn clothing and other worn-textile articles from individual states to the destination countries. We have obtained annual data on these exports for the 2002-2016 period. These data show no exports to 20-25 percent of the 240 listed destination countries each year of that period. Such a high proportion of zero-export observations can cause biased estimates of the regression coefficients, but deleting these observations would also cause biased estimates of the coefficients. So, we have begun to consider ways to aggregate the state-export data to reduce the number of zero observations. The way we aggregate would desirably reflect the patterns of transporting used clothing and textiles from states where donation of the goods to charities occurs to states where the goods are exported. Such goods are typically transported by truck to container ports for export. Aggregation possibilities are the four U.S. census regions or the nine U.S. census divisions, but neither may capture the actual transport patterns. Thus, are consideringaggregation alternatives by examining data on U.S. container-export ports, along with U.S. census data on patterns of commodity transport by truck from each state to other states, especially ones with container-export ports, although the census data do not specify the transported commodities. We also have considered independent variables for analyzing the state-export determinants to possibly replace or augment such variables identified in the project proposal. In the state-export data, most of the top-ten export states have ocean coastlines and each of the top-three export states borders Canada or Mexico. These patterns suggest the usefulness of including variables such as whether each state borders an ocean and/or Canada or Mexico, or alternatively the length (in kilometers) of each state's ocean shoreline and/or its border with Canada or Mexico. Data on all those variables are available.
Publications
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Progress 10/01/15 to 09/30/16
Outputs
Target Audience:The target audience this year included undergraduate and graduate students who assisted with the research. Changes/Problems:
Nothing Reported
What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?The project has provided opportunities for training and professional development through involving undergraduate and graduate students in the collection and analysis of the research data. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?
Nothing Reported
What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?We plan to complete and submit to a journal the article we have drafted on theanalysis of the determinants of U.S. exports of worn clothing and other worn textile articles. We also plan to complete the analysis of the determinants of the supply of these exports, including looking into improve measures of the apparel-price and income-distribution variables.in the supply equation.
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
Despite large, long-standing U.S. trade deficits in textiles and apparel in general, one area of such products for which the United States has trade surpluses is worn clothing and other worn textile articles. The total value of U.S. exports of worn clothing and other worn textile articles was $28 million in 2006 and more than doubled to $64 million by 2012. These exports surpassed U.S. imports of those products by $27 million in 2006 and $63 million in 2012. The United States led the world in used-clothing exports in most years over the previous decade. Interestingly, low-income countries are both the main source of U.S. textile and apparel imports and the main markets for U.S. exports of used clothing and textiles. The overall purpose of this research is to analyze and provide information on the determinants of U.S. exports of worn clothing and other worn textile articles. This year, we obtained additional data on these exports from each U.S. state, extending the data from 2002-2012 to 2002-2015. We also characterized these data for objective2. A highlight of the data is that although U.S. exports of used clothing and textiles go primarily to low-income countries (e.g., Mexico), Canada was a major market for such exports of most U.S. states over 2002-2015. Reasons for the prominence of Canada require investigation, but possibilities are (a) that it is home to retailers of used clothing and textiles that import and sell domestically large amounts of the goods and (b) that, like the Netherlands, Canada is home to charities and firms that import such goods and then export them to other countries. Another highlight is that the exports of used clothing and textiles from Texas exceeded those from any other U.S. state each year over 2002-2015. California and New York State ranked second and third or vice versa and Florida often ranked fourth among the 50 states in these exports each year over that period. Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and Washington also were in the top ten states in the exports in many years. The described patterns in these data suggest two factors that may help explain the exports of worn clothing and other worn textile articles from individual U.S. states when we analyze the determinants of these exports for objective 4. Those factors are whether each state has a seaport and whether each borders Canada or Mexico. We did not originally consider including these factors in that analysis. One or both of them may replace or be additional to the variable for the number of foreign-born residents in each state that we currently plan to include in this analysis on the basis of past research on the total exports of individual U.S. states. We also made further progress this year in analyzing determinants of the supply of U.S. exports of worn clothing and other worn textile articles for objective 5. We found that charities, the primary direct source of U.S. exports of used clothing and textiles, will likely see a decline (rise) in the supply of these goods as the U.S. unemployment rate increases (falls) because the lack of income of unemployed breadwinners leads families to retain (not dispose) the used clothing and textiles they own to avoid purchasing such goods. Indeed, the unemployed are more likely to purchase used clothing and textiles than to donate such items. We also found that U.S. charities and firms engaged in exporting used clothing and textiles are likely to see increased supply of these goods over time because of the acceleration of fashion change in the U.S. market and because fashion change positively affects the supply of the goods. As U.S. fashion-conscious consumers purchase the latest styles that become available in the market, they dispose of previous purchases to make room in their closets for the new purchases. However, it may behoove charities and firms to promote and facilitate consumer donations, rather than discarding of used clothing and textiles and thereby increase the supply of the goods for export instead of having the goods end up in landfills. Our main accomplishments this year were toward achieving objectives 2 and 5 to respectively characterize the pattern of the total annual value of the exports of worn clothing and other worn textile articles from individual U.S. states to the destination countries over at least 2002-2012 and analyze the determinants of the supply of U.S. exports of worn clothing and other worn textile articles. For our analysis on the determinants of the export supply, the data we previously collected on the total annual value of U.S. exports of worn clothing and other worn textile articles over 2002-2012 served as the measure of the export supply. We also collected U.S. government data on continuous independent variables whose effects on the export supply we analyzed. Those data are the average U.S. price of new apparel; the total U.S. personal expenditure for apparel; the total income of the fifth (the highest) U.S. income quintile, as a measure of income distribution; the U.S. unemployment rate; and the total U.S. population less than 18 years old, with all these each year over 2002-2012. The data on exports and each continuous independent variable were in natural-logarithm form in the analysis. The independent variables also include two categorical variables: a time-trend variable to capture fashion change, and dummy variables for the quarters of each year to account for factors such as large U.S. consumer spending on apparel during the holiday season in the fourth quarter of each year and consumer disposal of apparel in other quarters to make closet space for newly acquired clothing. Because we used time-series data, we used real (inflation-adjusted) values of the apparel-price, apparel-expenditure, and income data in the analysis, and we tested whether each continuous independent variable was stationary, meaning whether its mean and variance were constant over 2002-2012. Each continuous independent variable was found in the Dickey-Fuller test to be stationary when lagged two years; thus, each of these variables was lagged two years in the analysis. Estimation of the supply equation in the analysis by ordinary least squares indicates that four variables significantly affect the supply of U.S. exports of worn clothing and other worn textile articles. The price of new apparel has the most influence on the supply, followed by fashion change, the unemployment rate, and the income-distribution variable. The greater the fashion change and the new-apparel price and the lower the unemployment rate and the fifth-quintile total income, the more the export supply. The results for fashion change and the unemployment rate are as expected, but those for apparel price and the income-distribution variable are not, perhaps suggesting the need for improved measures of the latter two variables.
Publications
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Progress 10/01/14 to 09/30/15
Outputs
Target Audience:The target audience this year included undergraduate and graduate students who assisted with the research. Changes/Problems:
Nothing Reported
What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?The project has provided opportunities for training and professionaldevelopment through involving undergraduate and graduate students in the collection and analysis of the research data. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?
Nothing Reported
What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?The plan includescompletion ofthe drafted article on the analysis of the determinants of U.S. exports of worn clothing and worn textile articles to destinationcountries and submit the article to a journal. The plan also includes completion of the analysis of the determinants of the supply of these exports and writing a journal article on the analysis.
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
Despite large, long-standing U.S. trade deficits in textiles and apparel, one area of such product exports in which the United States excels is worn clothing and other worn textile articles. The total value of these exports in 2006 was $28 million and more than doubled by 2012 to reach $64 million. These exports surpassed U.S. imports of worn clothing and other worn textile articles by $27 million in 2006 and by $63 million in 2012. The United States led the world in used clothing exports in most years over the previous decade. Interestingly, low-income countries are both the main source of U.S. textile and apparel imports and the main markets for U.S. exports of worn clothing and other worn textile articles. The overall purpose of this research is to analyze and provide information on the determinants of these exports. This year, we completed the analysis of the determinants of these U.S. exports to the destination (importing) countries, and we conducted a preliminary analysis of the determinants of the supply of the exports. We found thatbecause low-income countries are the main markets for U.S. exports of worn clothing and other worn textile articles.U.S. firms that export these products may see opportunities to increase their exports to such countries undergoing economic development that brings increased per capita GDPs in the countries. However, U.S. export firms also must be aware of import tariffs on the articles, perhaps especially in middle- and high-income importing countries, due to the large negative effects on the imports. Our accomplishments this year were toward achieving Objectives 3 and 5 respectively, to analyze the determinants of U.S. exports of worn clothing and other worn textile articles to the destination countries and to analyze the determinants of the supply of these exports. For the latter, we conducted a preliminary analysis of the determinants of the export supply and thus do not elaborate below. Our work last year included completion of Objective 1 to characterize the pattern of the exports in terms of the total annual value and quantity to the destination countries over at least 1989-2012. We have no accomplishments to report for Objectives 2 and 4 respectively, to characterize the pattern of U.S. exports worn clothing and other worn textile articles from each state in terms of the total annual value to the destination countries over at least 2002-2012 and to analyze the determinants of these exports from individual states to the destination countries. Our main accomplishments this year toward achieving Objective 3 are completing and drafting a journal article on analysis of the determinants of U.S. exports of worn clothing and other worn textile articles exports to the destination countries. We collected, from various sources, existing data on the total annual value of these U.S. exports to the 225 destination (importing) countries over 1989-2012 and data on characteristics of each importing country, including its annual total population, per capita gross domestic product (GDP), and bilateral tariff rate on worn clothing and other worn textile articles, the distance between its capital city and Washington, D.C., whether or not the country is landlocked and has English as an official language, and whether the country is classified as a low-, middle-, or high-income country based on its per capita GDP. The data on importing-country characteristics include those for the 163 countries with all needed data available. We used five variants of the gravity model to analyze effects of the variables listed above on U.S. exports of worn clothing and other worn textile articles. In each variant, the data for each continuous variable in the model are expressed in natural logarithms, which allows the estimated coefficient on each explanatory variable to be interpreted as an elasticity, that is, the percentage change in the total U.S. export value per 1 percent change in the explanatory variable of interest. We used ordinary least squares (OLS) to estimate one variant of the gravity model to compare the results with those when using other estimation methods. OLS is known to yield biased and inconsistent results when used to estimate the gravity model in analyzing trade flows. The variant estimated by OLS contains all variables described above. The second variant, called FE, includes the same variables except the landlocked and English variables, and it contains year and country-specific dummy variables (fixed effects) to account for time-varying and country-specific omitted variables without available data, but with potential effects on the exports, as well as two interaction terms, with whether each importing country is a low-, middle-, or high-income country interacted with first the per capita GDP of the country and then the tariff rate in the country. The results show that the FE variant ispreferred because it better explains the exports than does the OLS variant. Each remaining variant is a Poisson gravity model that allows analysis of all trade flows, including zero-value flows such as the 19.1 percent of zero-value exports in our study. One Poisson variant contains year dummy variables and the same variables as the first variant. The other two Poisson variants contain the same variables as the second variant. The first Poisson variant was estimated by the pseudo-maximum-likelihood estimator, which has the advantage of requiring estimation of only one equation. The other two were estimated by the zip-inflated Poisson model which requires estimating two equations. The results for the Poisson variants are preferred over the others due to best explaining the exports. Key results are 0.71 and 1.55 percent rise in the exports to low-income and middle-income countries respectively, per 1 percent increase in per capita GDP in the countries, 2.16 and 12.92 percent decline in the exports to middle- and high-income countries respectively, per 1 percent increase in the tariffs on the products in these countries.
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Progress 02/01/14 to 09/30/14
Outputs
Target Audience: The target audience this yearincluded undergraduate and graduate students who assisted with the research.. Changes/Problems:
Nothing Reported
What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided? The project has provided opportunities for training and professional development through involving undergraduate and graduate students in the collection and analysis of the research data. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?
Nothing Reported
What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals? The plan is to (a) complete the analysis of the determinants of U.S. exports of worn clothing and other worn textile articles and submit a manuscript on the analysis and findings to a researchjournal andfor consideration for presentationat a conference and (b) continue the analysis of the determinants of the determinants of the supply of those exports.
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
The purpose of this research is to analyze and provide information on the determinants of these exports. Major findings in this study are that most U.S. exports of worn clothing and other worn textile articles have gone to low-income countries and that future growth in imports of such products from the United States will likely be stronger in low-income countries than high-income countries. Given these findings, an important impact of this research relates to the following. U.S. exports of other worn textile articles provide employment in low-income countries where jobs outside subsistence agriculture are scarce. The employment provided in such countries includes jobs in import companies, some quite large, in tailoring and laundering to alter, mend, clean, and press the imported used textile articles to prepare them for sale to consumers, and in selling the items in shops and street markets. These jobs augment the incomes of many poor people in low-income countries, who then buy food and other essentials. As incomes rise in these countries, the countries increase their food imports from the United States and other developed countries, to the benefit of U.S. farmers and food processors, especially in states with substantial activity in food production and processing.Our accomplishments this year are toward achieving two of the research objectives: to characterize the pattern of U.S. exports of worn clothing and other worn textile articles in terms of the total annual value and quantity to the destination countries over at least 1989-2012 and to analyze the determinants of these U.S. exports to the destination countries. We have no accomplishments to report for the other three research objectives: to characterize the pattern of U.S. exports of worn clothing and other worn textile articles from each state in terms of the total annual value to the destination countries over at least 2002-2012; to analyze the determinants of such U.S. exports from individual states to the destination countries; and to analyze the determinants of the supply of U.S. exports of worn clothing and other worn textile articles. We collected data on the total annual value and quantity of U.S. exports of worn clothing and other worn textile articles over 1989-2012, and we analyzed patterns in these data through graphs and tables. The source of the export data is the dataweb of the U.S. International Trade Commission under the 6309000000 classification in the Harmonized Tariff Schedule of the United States (HTS). Characterization of the export data clarified major patterns in the exports, including high growth in the exports and that the main import markets for the exports appear to be low-income countries, especially in Africa, although some high-income countries (e.g., Japan) also import worn clothing and other worn textile articles from the United States. We also conducted a preliminary analysis of the determinants of U.S. exports of worn clothing and other worn textile articles. We planned to analyze the determinants of the U.S. exports to all 162 destination countries, but actually analyzed the determinants of the exports to 141 countries due to data being unavailable for the remaining importing countries. Along with the annual U.S. export data over 1989-2012, we collected annual data for that period on several other variables whose effects on the exports we analyzed. These variables include the distance between the United States and each importing country; the total population and the GDP per capita of the United States and of each importing country; the bilateral exchange rate between the U.S. dollar and the currency of each importing country; the effective tariff rate applied by each importing country as a percentage of the value of worn clothing or other worn textile articles; whether or not each importing country is landlocked and has English is an official language; and the relative level of economic development of each importing country, specifically whether or not each is classified as a high-income country, that is, a country with per capita gross national income more than $12,616. All variables above except the last have been widely incorporated in analyses of trade in textiles and apparel and other products. We included the variable on the relative level of economic development of each importing country because policymakers in government and business may be interested in the relative strengths of the import markets for U.S. exports of worn clothing and other worn textile articles in low-income versus high-income countries. It should also be noted that although tariff rates on worn clothing and other worn textile articles in different importing countries affect the relative prices of these articles in the importing countries and thus the relative incentives to import the articles into the countries, we also take such a tariff rate as a measure of the elasticity of substitution between imports of worn clothing and other worn textile articles and clothing and other textile articles from other sources, thus as a measure of the degree to which importers substitute imports of worn clothing and other worn textile articles for clothing and other textile articles from other sources. We used three variants of the gravity model to analyze the effects of the variables listed above on U.S. exports of worn clothing and other worn textile articles. One variant accounts for both year and country-specific fixed effects; one accounts for only year fixed effects; and the third does not account for either year or country-specific fixed effects. The variants that account for year fixed effects contain a variable that accounts for all effects on the U.S. exports that do not vary over time. These effects include those of the English and landlocked variables, as well as other characteristics of the importing countries that do not vary with time, but are not captured by variables specifically included in the analysis. Similarly, the variant that accounts for country-specific fixed effects incorporates a variable that accounts for all effects on the U.S. exports that do not vary by importing country, but are not captured by variables specifically included in the analysis. A further issue is that all data for the continuous variables in the model were expressed in natural logarithms, which allows the estimated coefficient on each of these variables to be easily interpreted as an elasticity, that is, the percentage change in the value of the U.S. exports per 1% change in the variable whose effect on the exports is analyzed. Our study expands on previous applications of the gravity model in analyzing trade in textiles and apparel, but we are the first to apply the model to analyze trade in worn clothing and other worn textile articles. The results for the variant of the model that accounts for year and country-specific fixed effects suggest that exchange-rate fluctuations do not significantly affect U.S. exports of worn clothing and other worn textile articles to destination countries. Furthermore, a larger increase in imports of worn clothing and other worn textile articles from the United States appears to be induced by 1% growth in the GDPs per capita of low-income countries than of high-income countries. Our results also suggest that, when accounting for all other variables in the analysis, less U.S. exports of worn clothing and other worn textile articles go to high-income countries than to low-income countries and that increased tariff rates on such articles induce a higher propensity in high-income countries than in low-income countries to substitute away from imports of worn clothing and other worn textile articles from the United States. Given these findings, we expect that future growth in imports of worn clothing and other worn textile articles from the United States to be stronger in low-income countries than high-income countries.
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