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Together at Last: Trade Costs, Demand Structure, and Welfare

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  • Neary, Peter
  • Mrázová, Monika

Abstract

We show that relaxing the assumption of CES preferences in monopolistic competition has surprising implications when trade is restricted. Integrated and segmented markets behave very differently, the latter typically implying a form of reciprocal dumping. Globalization and lower trade costs have very different effects: the former reduces spending on all existing varieties, the latter switches spending from home to imported varieties; in the plausible case where demands are less convex than CES, globalization raises firm output whereas lower trade costs reduce it. Finally, calibrating gains from trade is harder. Many more parameters need to be calibrated than in the CES case, while import demand elasticities are likely to overestimate the true elasticities, and so underestimate the gains from trade.

Suggested Citation

  • Neary, Peter & Mrázová, Monika, 2014. "Together at Last: Trade Costs, Demand Structure, and Welfare," CEPR Discussion Papers 9839, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
  • Handle: RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:9839
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    Cited by:

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    2. Igor Bykadorov & Andrea Ellero & Stefania Funari & Sergey Kokovin & Pavel Molchanov, 2016. "Painful Birth of Trade Under Classical Monopolistic Competition," HSE Working papers WP BRP 132/EC/2016, National Research University Higher School of Economics.
    3. Stark, Oded & Zawojska, Ewa & Kohler, Wilhelm & Szczygielski, Krzysztof, 2018. "An adverse social welfare effect of a doubly gainful trade," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 135(C), pages 77-84.
    4. Wang, Xichao & Gibson, Mark J., 2015. "Trade, non-homothetic preferences, and the impact of country size on wages," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 132(C), pages 121-124.
    5. Ligon, Ethan, 2016. "Some $\lambda$-separable Frisch demands with utility functions," Department of Agricultural & Resource Economics, UC Berkeley, Working Paper Series qt1s06c2zp, Department of Agricultural & Resource Economics, UC Berkeley.
    6. Heiland, Inga & Kohler, Wilhelm, 2022. "Heterogeneous workers, trade, and migration," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 144(C).
    7. Marco Bee & Stefano Schiavo, 2018. "Powerless: gains from trade when firm productivity is not Pareto distributed," Review of World Economics (Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv), Springer;Institut für Weltwirtschaft (Kiel Institute for the World Economy), vol. 154(1), pages 15-45, February.
    8. Kokovin, Sergey & Molchanov, Pavel & Bykadorov, Igor, 2022. "Increasing returns, monopolistic competition, and international trade: Revisiting gains from trade," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 137(C).
    9. J. Peter Neary, 2016. "International Trade in General Oligopolistic Equilibrium," Review of International Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 24(4), pages 669-698, September.
    10. Matveenko, Andrei, 2020. "Logit, CES, and rational inattention," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 186(C).
    11. Monika Mrázová & J. Peter Neary, 2017. "Not So Demanding: Demand Structure and Firm Behavior," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 107(12), pages 3835-3874, December.
    12. Igor A. Bykadorov & Alexey A. Gorn & Sergey G. Kokovin & Evgeny V. Zhelobodko, 2014. "Losses From Trade In Krugman’s Model: Almost Impossible," HSE Working papers WP BRP 61/EC/2014, National Research University Higher School of Economics.
    13. Mrázová, Monika & Neary, J. Peter, 2020. "IO for exports(s)," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 70(C).
    14. Heid, Benedikt & Stähler, Frank, 2024. "Structural gravity and the gains from trade under imperfect competition: Quantifying the effects of the European Single Market," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 131(C).
    15. Abbassi, Abdessalem & Tamini, Lota D. & Dakhlaoui, Ahlem, 2015. "Import quota allocation between regions under Cournot competition," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 484-490.
    16. Lota D. Tamini & Zakaria Sorgho, 2018. "Trade in Environmental Goods: Evidences from an Analysis Using Elasticities of Trade Costs," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 70(1), pages 53-75, May.
    17. Cees A. Withagen, 2018. "The Social Cost of Carbon and the Ramsey Rule," CESifo Working Paper Series 7359, CESifo.
    18. Dao‐Zhi Zeng & Shin‐Kun Peng, 2021. "Symmetric tax competition and welfare with footloose capital," Journal of Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 61(2), pages 472-491, March.
    19. Natalya Ayzenberg & Igor Bykadorov & Sergey Kokovin, 2018. "Optimal Reciprocal Import Tariffs Under Variable Elasticity Of Substitution," HSE Working papers WP BRP 204/EC/2018, National Research University Higher School of Economics.
    20. Bykadorov, Igor & Gorn, Alexey & Kokovin, Sergey & Zhelobodko, Evgeny, 2015. "Why are losses from trade unlikely?," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 129(C), pages 35-38.
    21. Lota Dabio Tamini & Sorgho Zakaria, 2016. "Trade in environmental goods: how important are trade costs elasticities?," Cahiers de recherche CREATE 2016-3, CREATE.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Super- and subconvexity of demand; Additively separable preferences; Ces preferences; Iceberg trade costs; Quantifying gains from trade; Super- and subconcavity of utility;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • F12 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Models of Trade with Imperfect Competition and Scale Economies; Fragmentation
    • F15 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Economic Integration
    • F17 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Trade Forecasting and Simulation

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