Intra-Industry Trade with Firm Heterogeneity. The Melitz Model and its Recent Extensions


Book Description

Master's Thesis from the year 2015 in the subject Economics - International Economic Relations, grade: 2,0, University of Münster (Institute of International Economics), language: English, abstract: While the traditional Trade Theory is merely able to explain trade between developed and less developed countries, the more recent literature of the New Trade Theory allows for capturing trade between countries that are all highly developed. One of its models - the Melitz model of intra-industry trade (2003) - incorporates heterogeneity in firm productivity into a framework based on Krugman (1980). The Melitz model is a corner stone of New Trade Theory models and has been extended in various papers to analyze intra-industry trade with respect to different aspects. One important aspect that is covered intensively in recent literature is the efect of unilateral trade liberalization on a country's welfare. This thesis presents the Melitz model (2003) by firstly illustrating its fundament based onKrugman (1980) and secondly deriving its working mechanisms both for opening for trade as well as for trade liberalization. Further, extensions by Melitz and Ottaviano (2005) and Demidova and Rodriguez-Clarez (2011) will be presented. The thesis concludes by discussing the contribution of the Melitz model to explain occurring trading patterns and its limitations.







The Empirics of Firm Heterogeneity and International Trade


Book Description

This paper reviews the empirical evidence on firm heterogeneity in international trade. A first wave of empirical findings from micro data on plants and firms proposed challenges for existing models of international trade and inspired the development of new theories emphasizing firm heterogeneity. Subsequent empirical research has examined additional predictions of these theories and explored other dimensions of the data not originally captured by them. These other dimensions include multi-product firms, offshoring, intra-firm trade and firm export market dynamics.




The Organization of Firms in a Global Economy


Book Description

Presents a new research program that is transforming the study of international trade. Until a few years ago, models of international trade did not recognize the heterogeneity of firms and exporters, and could not provide good explanations of international production networks. Now such models exist and are explored in this volume.




Intra-firm Trade


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Falling Trade Costs, Heterogeneous Firms, and Industry Dynamics


Book Description

This paper examines the response of industries and firms to changes in trade costs. Several new firm-level models of international trade with heterogeneous firms predict that industry productivity will rise as trade costs fall due to the reallocation of activity across plants within an industry. Using disaggregated U.S. import data, we create a new measure of trade costs over time and industries. As the models predict, productivity growth is faster in industries with falling trade costs. We also find evidence supporting the major hypotheses of the heterogenous-firm models. Plants in industries with falling trade costs are more likely to die or become exporters. Existing exporters increase their shipments abroad. The results do not apply equally across all sectors but are strongest for industries most likely to be producing horizontally-differentiated tradeable goods.




The Oxford Handbook of the Political Economy of International Trade


Book Description

The Oxford Handbook of the Political Economy of International Trade surveys the literature on the politics of international trade and highlights the most exciting recent scholarly developments. The Handbook is focused on work by political scientists that draws extensively on work in economics, but is distinctive in its applications and attention to political features; that is, it takes politics seriously. The Handbook's framework is organized in part along the traditional lines of domestic society-domestic institutions - international interaction, but elaborates this basic framework to showcase the most important new developments in our understanding of the political economy of trade. Within the field of international political economy, international trade has long been and continues to be one of the most vibrant areas of study. Drawing on models of economic interests and integrating them with political models of institutions and society, political scientists have made great strides in understanding the sources of trade policy preferences and outcomes. The 27 chapters in the Handbook include contributions from prominent scholars around the globe, and from multiple theoretical and methodological traditions. The Handbook considers the development of concepts and policies about international trade; the influence of individuals, firms, and societies; the role of domestic and international institutions; and the interaction of trade and other issues, such as monetary policy, environmental challenges, and human rights. Showcasing both established theories and findings and cutting-edge new research, the Handbook is a valuable reference for scholars of political economy.




Comparative Advantage and Heterogeneous Firms


Book Description

This paper examines how country, industry and firm characteristics interact in general equilibrium to determine nations' responses to trade liberalization. When firms possess heterogeneous productivity, countries differ in relative factor abundance and industries vary in factor intensity, falling trade costs induce reallocations of resources both within and across industries and countries. These reallocations generate substantial job turnover in all sectors, spur relatively more creative destruction in comparative advantage industries than comparative disadvantage industries, and magnify ex ante comparative advantage to create additional welfare gains from trade. The relative ascendance of high-productivity firms within industries boosts aggregate productivity and drives down consumer prices. In contrast with the neoclassical model, these price declines dampen and can even reverse the real wage losses of scarce factors as countries liberalize.




International Trade and Investment Behaviour of Firms


Book Description

In the last four decades the world has been significantly impacted by globalization and rapid technological changes. This in turn had major effects on the global economy. Several developing and socialist economies that earlier followed closed door and import substitution policies started to open up their economies to world trade and investments. Some such countries, as India, managed to achieve a degree of economic prosperity over the last few years after opening up their economy. The analyses in this book show that there are significant benefits from international trade and investment to emerging economies that possess critical-level initial conditions in technology, infrastructure, and ease of doing business, and also have friendly policies. Focusing on Indian firms, the book spans the period from the pre-reform era to the post-reform era, when the market was responding to policy reforms and global market dynamics. The reforms, it argues, resulted in positive outcomes of increased outward orientation and annual growth rates. The book also comments on the economic and institutional factors that change over time, locally as well as globally, and affect the behaviour of firms and industries.