IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/aea/aecrev/v92y2002i1p93-119.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Increasing Returns and All That: A View from Trade

Author

Listed:
  • Werner Antweiler
  • Daniel Trefler

Abstract

Do scale economies help to explain international trade flows? Using a large database on output, trade flows, and factor endowments, we find that allowing for the presence of increasing returns to scale in production significantly increases our ability to predict international trade flows. In particular, using trade data, we find that a third of all goods-producing industries are characterized by increasing returns to scale. Thus, scale economies are a quantifiable and important source of comparative advantage. (JEL F11, F12, D2)

Suggested Citation

  • Werner Antweiler & Daniel Trefler, 2002. "Increasing Returns and All That: A View from Trade," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 92(1), pages 93-119, March.
  • Handle: RePEc:aea:aecrev:v:92:y:2002:i:1:p:93-119
    Note: DOI: 10.1257/000282802760015621
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.aeaweb.org/articles.php?doi=10.1257/000282802760015621
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to AEA members and institutional subscribers.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. James R. Tybout, 2000. "Manufacturing Firms in Developing Countries: How Well Do They Do, and Why?," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 38(1), pages 11-44, March.
    2. Robert C. Feenstra & Gordon H. Hanson, 1995. "Foreign Investment, Outsourcing and Relative Wages," NBER Working Papers 5121, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Donald S. Siegel & Catherine J. Morrison Paul, 1999. "Scale Economies and Industry Agglomeration Externalities: A Dynamic Cost Function Approach," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 89(1), pages 272-290, March.
    4. Trefler, Daniel, 1993. "International Factor Price Differences: Leontief Was Right!," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 101(6), pages 961-987, December.
    5. Klepper, Steven & Leamer, Edward E, 1984. "Consistent Sets of Estimates for Regressions with Errors in All Variables," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 52(1), pages 163-183, January.
    6. Michael Denny & Melvyn Fuss, 1983. "The Effects of Factor Prices and Technological Change on the Occupational Demand for Labor: Evidence from Canadian Telecommunications," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 18(2), pages 161-176.
    7. Donald R. Davis & David E. Weinstein, 1996. "Does Economic Geography Matter for International Specialization?," Harvard Institute of Economic Research Working Papers 1773, Harvard - Institute of Economic Research.
    8. Dale W. Jorgenson & Jean-Jacques Laffont, 1974. "Efficient Estimation of Nonlinear Simultaneous Equations with Additive Disturbances," NBER Chapters, in: Annals of Economic and Social Measurement, Volume 3, number 4, pages 615-640, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    9. Bowen, Harry P & Leamer, Edward E & Sveikauskas, Leo, 1987. "Multicountry, Multifactor Tests of the Factor Abundance Theory," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 77(5), pages 791-809, December.
    10. Larry G. Epstein, 1982. "Integrability of Incomplete Systems of Demand Functions," Review of Economic Studies, Oxford University Press, vol. 49(3), pages 411-425.
    11. Davis, Donald R., 1995. "Intra-industry trade: A Heckscher-Ohlin-Ricardo approach," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 39(3-4), pages 201-226, November.
    12. Zvi Griliches & Jacques Mairesse, 1995. "Production Functions: The Search for Identification," NBER Working Papers 5067, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    13. Susanto Basu, 1996. "Procyclical Productivity: Increasing Returns or Cyclical Utilization?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 111(3), pages 719-751.
    14. James R. Markusen & Anthony J. Venables, 2021. "Multinational firms and the new trade theory," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: BROADENING TRADE THEORY Incorporating Market Realities into Traditional Models, chapter 3, pages 47-67, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    15. Helpman, Elhanan, 1981. "International trade in the presence of product differentiation, economies of scale and monopolistic competition : A Chamberlin-Heckscher-Ohlin approach," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 11(3), pages 305-340, August.
    16. Werner Antweiler & Daniel Trefler, 2002. "Increasing Returns and All That: A View from Trade," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 92(1), pages 93-119, March.
    17. Amemiya, Takeshi, 1974. "The nonlinear two-stage least-squares estimator," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 2(2), pages 105-110, July.
    18. Davis, Donald R, 1997. "Critical Evidence on Comparative Advantage? North-North Trade in a Multilateral World," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 105(5), pages 1051-1060, October.
    19. Rotemberg, Julio J & Woodford, Michael, 1992. "Oligopolistic Pricing and the Effects of Aggregate Demand on Economic Activity," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 100(6), pages 1153-1207, December.
    20. Basu, Susanto & Fernald, John G, 1997. "Returns to Scale in U.S. Production: Estimates and Implications," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 105(2), pages 249-283, April.
    21. S. Lael Brainard, 1993. "An Empirical Assessment of the Factor Proportions Explanation of Multi-National Sales," NBER Working Papers 4583, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    22. Alan V. DEARDORFF, 2011. "Weak Links In The Chain Of Comparative Advantage," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Robert M Stern (ed.), Comparative Advantage, Growth, And The Gains From Trade And Globalization A Festschrift in Honor of Alan V Deardorff, chapter 9, pages 59-71, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    23. Nelson, Charles R & Startz, Richard, 1990. "Some Further Results on the Exact Small Sample Properties of the Instrumental Variable Estimator," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 58(4), pages 967-976, July.
    24. Barro, Robert J. & Lee, Jong-Wha, 1993. "International comparisons of educational attainment," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(3), pages 363-394, December.
    25. Ethier, Wilfred J, 1982. "National and International Returns to Scale in the Modern Theory of International Trade," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 72(3), pages 389-405, June.
    26. James Levinsohn & Amil Petrin, 1999. "When Industries Become More Productive, Do Firms?," NBER Working Papers 6893, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    27. Trefler, Daniel, 1995. "The Case of the Missing Trade and Other Mysteries," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 85(5), pages 1029-1046, December.
    28. repec:fth:michin:445 is not listed on IDEAS
    29. Levinsohn, J. & Petrin, A., 1999. "When Industries Become More Productive, Do Firms?: Investigating Productivity Dynamics," Working Papers 445, Research Seminar in International Economics, University of Michigan.
    30. Patrick J. Conway, 2002. "The Case of the Missing Trade and Other Mysteries: Comment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 92(1), pages 394-404, March.
    31. Krugman, Paul R., 1979. "Increasing returns, monopolistic competition, and international trade," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 9(4), pages 469-479, November.
    32. Harrigan, James, 1996. "Openness to trade in manufactures in the OECD," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 40(1-2), pages 23-39, February.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Trefler, Daniel & Zhu, Susan Chun, 2010. "The structure of factor content predictions," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 82(2), pages 195-207, November.
    2. Bernstein, Jeffrey R. & Weinstein, David E., 2002. "Do endowments predict the location of production?: Evidence from national and international data," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 56(1), pages 55-76, January.
    3. Paolo Epifani & Gino Gancia, 2008. "The Skill Bias of World Trade," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 118(530), pages 927-960, July.
    4. Simon J. Evenett & Wolfgang Keller, 2002. "On Theories Explaining the Success of the Gravity Equation," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 110(2), pages 281-316, April.
    5. Davis, Donald R. & Weinstein, David E., 1999. "Economic geography and regional production structure: An empirical investigation," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 43(2), pages 379-407, February.
    6. Elhanan Helpman, 1999. "The Structure of Foreign Trade," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 13(2), pages 121-144, Spring.
    7. Donald R. Davis & David E. Weinstein, 2001. "Do Factor Endowments Matter for North-North Trade?," NBER Working Papers 8516, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. Donald R. Davis & David E. Weinstein, 2001. "An Account of Global Factor Trade," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(5), pages 1423-1453, December.
    9. Daniel M. Bernhofen, 2010. "The Empirics of General Equilibrium Trade Theory: What Have We Learned?," Discussion Papers 10/24, University of Nottingham, GEP.
    10. Clément Nedoncelle, 2016. "Trade Costs and Current Accounts," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 39(10), pages 1653-1672, October.
    11. Kraay, Aart & Raddatz, Claudio, 2007. "Poverty traps, aid, and growth," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 82(2), pages 315-347, March.
    12. Harald Fadinger & Pablo Fleiss, 2011. "Trade and Sectoral Productivity," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 121(555), pages 958-989, September.
    13. Peter K. Schott, 2001. "Do Rich and Poor Countries Specialize in a Different Mix of Goods? Evidence from Product-Level US Trade Data," NBER Working Papers 8492, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    14. Harrigan, James, 1997. "Technology, Factor Supplies, and International Specialization: Estimating the Neoclassical Model," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 87(4), pages 475-494, September.
    15. Hausmann, Ricardo & Stock, Daniel P. & Yıldırım, Muhammed A., 2022. "Implied comparative advantage," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 51(8).
    16. Leamer, Edward E. & Levinsohn, James, 1995. "International trade theory: The evidence," Handbook of International Economics, in: G. M. Grossman & K. Rogoff (ed.), Handbook of International Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 26, pages 1339-1394, Elsevier.
    17. Paolo Epifani & Gino Gancia, 2006. "Increasing Returns, Imperfect Competition, and Factor Prices," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 88(4), pages 583-598, November.
    18. Lindström, Tomas, 1999. "External Economies at the Firm Level: Evidence from Swedish Manufacturing," Working Paper Series 89, Sveriges Riksbank (Central Bank of Sweden).
    19. Marjit, Sugata & Mandal, Biswajit, 2021. "Monopolistic Competition, Optimum Product Diversity, and International Trade - The Role of Factor Endowment and Factor Intensities," GLO Discussion Paper Series 911, Global Labor Organization (GLO).
    20. F Trionfetti, 1999. "On the Home Market Effect: Theory and Empirical Evidence," CEP Discussion Papers dp0430, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • F11 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Neoclassical Models of Trade
    • F12 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Models of Trade with Imperfect Competition and Scale Economies; Fragmentation

    Lists

    This item is featured on the following reading lists, Wikipedia, or ReplicationWiki pages:
    1. Increasing Returns and All That: A View from Trade (AER 2002) in ReplicationWiki

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:aea:aecrev:v:92:y:2002:i:1:p:93-119. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Michael P. Albert (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/aeaaaea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.