IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/reecon/v71y2017i3p540-563.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Trade and firm heterogeneity in a Schumpeterian model of growth

Author

Listed:
  • Haruyama, Tetsugen
  • Zhao, Laixun

Abstract

The present paper explores the effect of trade liberalization on the level of productivity as well as the rate of productivity growth in an R&D-based model with heterogeneous firms. We introduce new and plausible features that are absent in existing studies. First, technical progress takes the form of continual quality improvement of products over time. Second, firm entry and exit are endogenously determined due to creative destruction of products. In this framework, we demonstrate that a lower transport cost or export sunk cost unambiguously reallocates resources to R&D and top-quality product industries from low-quality good industries. This means that trade liberalization increases the rate of technical progress as well as the level of manufacturing productivity. These results are found to be robust in an extended model with population growth without scale effects.

Suggested Citation

  • Haruyama, Tetsugen & Zhao, Laixun, 2017. "Trade and firm heterogeneity in a Schumpeterian model of growth," Research in Economics, Elsevier, vol. 71(3), pages 540-563.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:reecon:v:71:y:2017:i:3:p:540-563
    DOI: 10.1016/j.rie.2017.07.002
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1090944317301977
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.rie.2017.07.002?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

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

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Jesse Perla & Christopher Tonetti & Michael E. Waugh, 2021. "Equilibrium Technology Diffusion, Trade, and Growth," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 111(1), pages 73-128, January.
    2. Baldwin, Richard E. & Robert-Nicoud, Frederic, 2008. "Trade and growth with heterogeneous firms," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 74(1), pages 21-34, January.
    3. Miyagiwa, Kaz & Ohno, Yuka, 1995. "Closing the Technology Gap under Protection," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 85(4), pages 755-770, September.
    4. Baldwin, Richard E. & Forslid, Rikard, 2000. "Trade liberalisation and endogenous growth: A q-theory approach," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(2), pages 497-517, April.
    5. Coe, David T. & Helpman, Elhanan, 1995. "International R&D spillovers," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 39(5), pages 859-887, May.
    6. Hallak, Juan Carlos & Sivadasan, Jagadeesh, 2013. "Product and process productivity: Implications for quality choice and conditional exporter premia," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 91(1), pages 53-67.
    7. Jones, Charles I., 2005. "Growth and Ideas," Handbook of Economic Growth, in: Philippe Aghion & Steven Durlauf (ed.), Handbook of Economic Growth, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 16, pages 1063-1111, Elsevier.
    8. Thomas Sampson, 2016. "Dynamic Selection: An Idea Flows Theory of Entry, Trade, and Growth," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 131(1), pages 315-380.
    9. Richard Baldwin & James Harrigan, 2011. "Zeros, Quality, and Space: Trade Theory and Trade Evidence," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 3(2), pages 60-88, May.
    10. Wolfgang Keller, 2004. "International Technology Diffusion," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 42(3), pages 752-782, September.
    11. Hallak, Juan Carlos, 2006. "Product quality and the direction of trade," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 68(1), pages 238-265, January.
    12. Aghion, Philippe & Howitt, Peter, 1992. "A Model of Growth through Creative Destruction," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 60(2), pages 323-351, March.
    13. Chol-Won Li, 2003. "Endogenous Growth Without Scale Effects: Comment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 93(3), pages 1009-1017, June.
    14. Andrew B. Bernard & Jonathan Eaton & J. Bradford Jensen & Samuel Kortum, 2003. "Plants and Productivity in International Trade," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 93(4), pages 1268-1290, September.
    15. Jean Tirole, 1988. "The Theory of Industrial Organization," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262200716, December.
    16. Andrew Atkeson & Ariel Tomás Burstein, 2010. "Innovation, Firm Dynamics, and International Trade," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 118(3), pages 433-484, June.
    17. Romain Wacziarg & Karen Horn Welch, 2008. "Trade Liberalization and Growth: New Evidence," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 22(2), pages 187-231, June.
    18. Bernard, Andrew B. & Bradford Jensen, J., 1999. "Exceptional exporter performance: cause, effect, or both?," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 47(1), pages 1-25, February.
    19. Ederington, Josh & McCalman, Phillip, 2008. "Endogenous firm heterogeneity and the dynamics of trade liberalization," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 74(2), pages 422-440, March.
    20. Jonathan Eaton & Samuel Kortum, 2002. "Technology, Geography, and Trade," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 70(5), pages 1741-1779, September.
    21. Paula Bustos, 2011. "Trade Liberalization, Exports, and Technology Upgrading: Evidence on the Impact of MERCOSUR on Argentinian Firms," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(1), pages 304-340, February.
    22. Ben-David, Dan & Loewy, Michael B, 1998. "Free Trade, Growth, and Convergence," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 3(2), pages 143-170, June.
    23. Li, Chol-Won, 2002. "Growth and scale effects: the role of knowledge spillovers," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 74(2), pages 177-185, January.
    24. Peter K. Schott, 2004. "Across-Product Versus Within-Product Specialization in International Trade," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 119(2), pages 647-678.
    25. Bee Yan Aw & Mark J. Roberts & Daniel Yi Xu, 2008. "R&D Investments, Exporting, and the Evolution of Firm Productivity," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 98(2), pages 451-456, May.
    26. Helble, Matthias & Okubo, Toshihiro, 2008. "Heterogeneous quality firms and trade costs," Policy Research Working Paper Series 4550, The World Bank.
    27. Bee Yan Aw & Mark J. Roberts & Tor Winston, 2005. "The Complementary Role of Exports and R&D Investments as Sources of Productivity Growth," NBER Working Papers 11774, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    28. Marc J. Melitz, 2003. "The Impact of Trade on Intra-Industry Reallocations and Aggregate Industry Productivity," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 71(6), pages 1695-1725, November.
    29. Alwyn Young, 1998. "Growth without Scale Effects," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 106(1), pages 41-63, February.
    30. Segerstrom, Paul S, 1998. "Endogenous Growth without Scale Effects," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 88(5), pages 1290-1310, December.
    31. Jones, Charles I, 1995. "R&D-Based Models of Economic Growth," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 103(4), pages 759-784, August.
    32. David Hummels & Peter J. Klenow, 2005. "The Variety and Quality of a Nation's Exports," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(3), pages 704-723, June.
    33. Segerstrom, Paul S & Anant, T C A & Dinopoulos, Elias, 1990. "A Schumpeterian Model of the Product Life Cycle," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 80(5), pages 1077-1091, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Grieben, Wolf-Heimo & Şener, Fuat, 2017. "Wage bargaining, trade and growth," Research in Economics, Elsevier, vol. 71(3), pages 564-587.

    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. Tetsugen Haruyama & Laixun Zhao, 2008. "Trade and Firm Heterogeneity In A Quality-Ladder Model of Growth," Discussion Paper Series 223, Research Institute for Economics & Business Administration, Kobe University.
    2. Dinopoulos, Elias & Unel, Bulent, 2011. "Quality heterogeneity and global economic growth," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 55(5), pages 595-612, June.
    3. Thomas Sampson, 2016. "Dynamic Selection: An Idea Flows Theory of Entry, Trade, and Growth," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 131(1), pages 315-380.
    4. Paul S. Segerstrom & Ignat Stepanok, 2018. "Learning How To Export," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 120(1), pages 63-92, January.
    5. T. Gries & R. Grundmann & I. Palnau & M. Redlin, 2017. "Innovations, growth and participation in advanced economies - a review of major concepts and findings," International Economics and Economic Policy, Springer, vol. 14(2), pages 293-351, April.
    6. Pian Shu & Claudia Steinwender, 2019. "The Impact of Trade Liberalization on Firm Productivity and Innovation," Innovation Policy and the Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 19(1), pages 39-68.
    7. Dinopoulos, Elias & Unel, Bulent, 2013. "A simple model of quality heterogeneity and international trade," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 37(1), pages 68-83.
    8. Maemir, H. & Ziesemer, T., 2014. "Multinational production and trade in an endogenous growth model with heterogeneous firms," MERIT Working Papers 2014-038, United Nations University - Maastricht Economic and Social Research Institute on Innovation and Technology (MERIT).
    9. Baldwin, Richard E. & Robert-Nicoud, Frederic, 2008. "Trade and growth with heterogeneous firms," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 74(1), pages 21-34, January.
    10. Maurice Kugler & Eric Verhoogen, 2012. "Prices, Plant Size, and Product Quality," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 79(1), pages 307-339.
    11. Gray, Elie & Grimaud, André, 2014. "The Lindahl equilibrium in Schumpeterian growth models: Knowledge diffusion, social value of innovations and optimal R&D incentives," TSE Working Papers 14-469, Toulouse School of Economics (TSE).
    12. Pengfei Wang & Danyang Xie, 2018. "Trade, Sectorial Reallocation, and Growth," Annals of Economics and Finance, Society for AEF, vol. 19(1), pages 49-74, May.
    13. Alcalá, Francisco, 2016. "Specialization across goods and export quality," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 98(C), pages 216-232.
    14. Giammario Impullitti & Omar Licandro, 2018. "Trade, Firm Selection and Innovation: The Competition Channel," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 128(608), pages 189-229, February.
    15. Nelson Lind & Natalia Ramondo, 2018. "Innovation, Knowledge Diffusion, and Globalization," NBER Working Papers 25071, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    16. Melitz, Marc J. & Redding, Stephen J., 2014. "Heterogeneous Firms and Trade," Handbook of International Economics, in: Gopinath, G. & Helpman, . & Rogoff, K. (ed.), Handbook of International Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 0, pages 1-54, Elsevier.
    17. Etro, Federico, 2017. "Research in economics and macroeconomics," Research in Economics, Elsevier, vol. 71(3), pages 373-383.
    18. Irene Brambilla & Nicolas Depetris Chauvin & Guido Porto, 2017. "Examining the Export Wage Premium in Developing Countries," Review of International Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 25(3), pages 447-475, August.
    19. Gray, Elie & Grimaud, André, 2014. "The Lindahl equilibrium in Schumpeterian growth models: Knowledge diffusion, social value of innovations and optimal R&D incentives," IDEI Working Papers 821, Institut d'Économie Industrielle (IDEI), Toulouse.
    20. Masashige Hamano, 2013. "On business cycles of variety and quality," DEM Discussion Paper Series 13-21, Department of Economics at the University of Luxembourg.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Trade; Firm heterogeneity; Technical progress; Growth;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • F10 - International Economics - - Trade - - - General
    • F43 - International Economics - - Macroeconomic Aspects of International Trade and Finance - - - Economic Growth of Open Economies
    • O30 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - General
    • O40 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Growth and Aggregate Productivity - - - General

    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:eee:reecon:v:71:y:2017:i:3:p:540-563. 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: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/622941 .

    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.