Simultaneous export supply-export price equations under uncertainty: the case of the United States

Traditionally the estimation of the import and export functions has been done by specifying either linear or log linear functions of some income and relative price variables then using, usually, ordinary least squares technique. Furthermore, most of earlier studies have concentrated on the demand relationships for imports and exports in one market with one price. This procedure, however, may be a subject to a wide range of criticisms due to its unrealistic assumptions and its restrictive relationships between the export supply and the export price. In this thesis the simultaneous relationships between the export supply behavior and the export price behavior is investigated empirically within a more general theoretical framework introduced by Haynes and Stone. For the study of simultaneous relationships this thesis deals with two markets and two prices in the open economy.

A framework similar to that of Haynes and Stone is used to estimate the structure of U.S. export supply. We depart, however, from Haynes and Stone by adding several exogenous variables and the export price as an endogeneous variable to the model.

The scope of this thesis is to use a simultaneous-equation system to estimate the elasticities of export supply, export price, and domestic price as well as the strategies of the United States economy in the open market.