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Local Comparative Advantage: Trade Costs and the Pattern of Trade

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Author Info
Alan V Deardorff (University of Michigan)

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Abstract

When there are costs of trade, such as transport or other costs, the pattern of trade may not be well described by the usual measures of comparative advantage, which simply compare a country’s costs or autarky prices to those of the world. Instead, a better comparison takes into account the costs of trade. This paper shows first, in an example, how trade patterns can vary with costs of trade. It then provides restatements of the Law of Comparative Advantage, first in a Ricardian model with trade costs. It then extends a result from Deardorff (1980) and Dixit and Norman (1980) to include trade costs explicitly in a more general framework. It uses this result to derive two correlations that relate trade patterns to measures of comparative advantage that take account of both autarky prices and the costs of trade. Finally, it examines the solution to a trade model with product differentiation in order to make the potential role of trade costs more explicit, both algebraically and graphically. With product differentiation either by country or by firm, net trade in an industry, both bilaterally and globally, depends on a country’s costs of both production and trade relative to an index of those costs for other countries.

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Paper provided by Research Seminar in International Economics, University of Michigan in its series Working Papers with number 500.

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Length: 35 pages
Date of creation: 2004
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Handle: RePEc:mie:wpaper:500

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Related research
Keywords: Comparative advantage; trade costs; transportation costs;

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Find related papers by JEL classification:
F11 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Neoclassical Models of Trade

References listed on IDEAS
Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:

  1. 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. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  2. Bergstrand, Jeffrey H, 1989. "The Generalized Gravity Equation, Monopolistic Competition, and the Factor-Proportions Theory in International Trade," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 71(1), pages 143-53, February. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  3. Debaere, P., 1998. ""Endowments Do Matter" Relative Factor Abundance and Trade," Working Papers 429, Research Seminar in International Economics, University of Michigan.
  4. Bergstrand, Jeffrey H, 1985. "The Gravity Equation in International Trade: Some Microeconomic Foundations and Empirical Evidence," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 67(3), pages 474-81, August. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  5. 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. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  6. Dornbusch, Rudiger & Fischer, Stanley & Samuelson, Paul A, 1977. "Comparative Advantage, Trade, and Payments in a Ricardian Model with a Continuum of Goods," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 67(5), pages 823-39, December. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  7. Deardorff, Alan V, 1982. "The General Validity of the Heckscher-Ohlin Theorem," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 72(4), pages 683-94, September. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  8. McCallum, John, 1995. "National Borders Matter: Canada-U.S. Regional Trade Patterns," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 85(3), pages 615-23, June. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  9. James E. Rauch, 2001. "Business and Social Networks in International Trade," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 39(4), pages 1177-1203, December. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  10. Dixit, Avinash K & Stiglitz, Joseph E, 1977. "Monopolistic Competition and Optimum Product Diversity," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 67(3), pages 297-308, June. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  11. Deardorff, Alan V, 1980. "The General Validity of the Law of Comparative Advantage," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 88(5), pages 941-57, October. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  12. Alan Deardorff, 1998. "Determinants of Bilateral Trade: Does Gravity Work in a Neoclassical World?," NBER Chapters, in: The Regionalization of the World Economy, pages 7-32 National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!]
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  13. Dalia Hakura, 1999. "A Test of the General Validity of the Heckscher-Ohlin Theorem for Trade in the European Community," IMF Working Papers 99/70, International Monetary Fund.
  14. Krugman, Paul R., 1979. "Increasing returns, monopolistic competition, and international trade," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 9(4), pages 469-479, November. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  15. James E. Anderson & Eric van Wincoop, 2000. "Gravity with Gravitas: A Solution to the Border Puzzle," Boston College Working Papers in Economics 485, Boston College Department of Economics. [Downloadable!]
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Cited by:
(explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)

  1. G.A. Minerva, 2006. "Natural Advantage, Location and Trade Patterns in Increasing Returns to Scale Industries," Working Papers 560, Dipartimento Scienze Economiche, Universita' di Bologna. [Downloadable!]
  2. Felicitas Nowak-Lehmann D. & Sebastian Vollmer & Inmaculada Martinez-Zarzoso, 2008. "Does Comparative Advantage Make Countries Competitive? A Comparison of China and Mexico," cege – Center for European, Governance and Economic Development Research Discussion Papers 74, cege – Center for European, Governance and Economic Development Research, University of Goettingen (Germany).. [Downloadable!]
  3. Richard Baldwin & James Harrigan, 2007. "Zeros, Quality and Space: Trade Theory and Trade Evidence," NBER Working Papers 13214, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  4. Nicolas Péridy, 2004. "The new U.S. trans-ocean free trade initiatives: estimating export and FDI potentials from dynamic panel data models," Economics Bulletin, Economics Bulletin, vol. 6(9), pages 1-12. [Downloadable!]
  5. Peter K. Schott, 2006. "The Relative Sophistication of Chinese Exports," NBER Working Papers 12173, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  6. Alan V. Deardorff, 2004. "Trade and Location: A Moving Example Motivated by Japan," Working Papers 516, Research Seminar in International Economics, University of Michigan. [Downloadable!]
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  7. James Harrigan, 2005. "Airplanes and Comparative Advantage," NBER Working Papers 11688, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  8. Carolyn L. Evans & James Harrigan, 2005. "Distance, Time, and Specialization: Lean Retailing in General Equilibrium," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(1), pages 292-313, March. [Downloadable!]
  9. Tomasz Iwanow & Colin Kirkpatrick, 2007. "Trade facilitation, regulatory quality and export performance," Journal of International Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 19(6), pages 735-753. [Downloadable!]
  10. Gabriel J. Felbermayr & Wilhelm Kohler, 2004. "Exploring the Intensive and Extensive Margins of World Trade," CESifo Working Paper Series CESifo Working Paper No. , CESifo Group Munich. [Downloadable!]
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  11. Wolf, Nikolaus, 2008. "Was Germany Ever United? Evidence from Intra- and International Trade, 1885 -1933," CEPR Discussion Papers 6796, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  12. Gert-Jan M. Linders & Arjen Slangen & Henri L.F. de Groot & Sjoerd Beugelsdijk, 2005. "Cultural and Institutional Determinants of Bilateral Trade Flows," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 05-074/3, Tinbergen Institute. [Downloadable!]
  13. Wilhelm Kohler, 2007. "The Bazaar Effect, Unbundling of Comparative Advantage, and Migration," CESifo Working Paper Series CESifo Working Paper No. , CESifo Group Munich. [Downloadable!]
  14. Gert-Jan M. Linders, 2005. "Distance Decay in International Trade Patterns - a Meta-analysis," ERSA conference papers ersa05p679, European Regional Science Association. [Downloadable!]
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