IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/2452.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Quality Upgrading and its Welfare Cost in U.S. Steel Imports, 1969-74

Author

Listed:
  • Randi Boorstein
  • Robert C. Feenstra

Abstract

In this paper we measure the quality change which has occurred in U.S. steel imports during the 1969-74 VRA, using an index number method. Under this approach, the yearly changes in unit values is broken into three components: a quality-adjusted or pure price index; a quality index, which measures changes in the product mix; and a supplier index, which measures changes in the source of supply. We also derive a measure of welfare cost, which equals the inverse of a Paasche price index minus the inverse of an exact price index. Over the 1969-74 VRA period we find quality upgrading of 7.4 percent in U.S. steel imports, which occurs most strongly in the first year. The welfare cost of quality change varies around one percent of import expenditure during 1970-73. This cost is at least as large as the conventional deadweight loss triangle, but smaller than the transfer of quota rents.

Suggested Citation

  • Randi Boorstein & Robert C. Feenstra, 1987. "Quality Upgrading and its Welfare Cost in U.S. Steel Imports, 1969-74," NBER Working Papers 2452, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:2452
    Note: ITI IFM
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w2452.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. James E. Anderson, 1988. "The Relative Inefficiency of Quotas," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262511789, December.
    2. Robert C. Feenstra, 1988. "Quality Change Under Trade Restraints in Japanese Autos," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 103(1), pages 131-146.
    3. Krishna, Kala, 1990. "Protection and the Product Line: Monopoly and Product Quality," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 31(1), pages 87-102, February.
    4. Feenstra, Robert C., 1985. "Automobile prices and protection: The U.S.-Japan trade restraint," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 7(1), pages 49-68.
    5. Diewert, W. E., 1985. "A dynamic approach to the measurement of waste in an open economy," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 19(3-4), pages 213-240, November.
    6. Diewert, W Erwin, 1983. " The Measurement of Waste within the Production Sector of an Open Economy," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 85(2), pages 159-179.
    7. D. W. Jorgenson & Z. Griliches, 1967. "The Explanation of Productivity Change," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 34(3), pages 249-283.
    8. Analysis, A Welfare & Das, Satya P. & Donnenfeld, Shabtai, 1987. "Trade policy and its impact on quality of imports," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 23(1-2), pages 77-95, August.
    9. Kala Krishna, 1985. "Tariffs vs. Quotas with Endogenous Quality," NBER Working Papers 1535, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    10. Carlos Alfredo Rodriguez, 1979. "The Quality of Imports and the Differential Welfare Effects of Tariffs, Quotas, and Quality Controls as Protective Devices," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 12(3), pages 439-449, August.
    11. Diewert, W. E., 1976. "Exact and superlative index numbers," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 4(2), pages 115-145, May.
    12. Chinloy, Peter T, 1980. "Sources of Quality Change in Labor Input," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 70(1), pages 108-119, March.
    13. Falvey, Rodney E, 1979. "The Composition of Trade within Import-restricted Product Categories," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 87(5), pages 1105-1114, October.
    14. Diamond, P. A. & McFadden, D. L., 1974. "Some uses of the expenditure function in public finance," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 3(1), pages 3-21, February.
    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. Ramos, Maria Priscila & Bureau, Jean-Christophe & Salvatici, Luca, 2007. "Shipping the good beef out: EU trade liberalization to Mercosur exports," Working Papers 7215, TRADEAG - Agricultural Trade Agreements.
    2. Maria Cipollina & Luca Salvatici, 2008. "Measuring Protection: Mission Impossible?," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 22(3), pages 577-616, July.
    3. Martin, Julien & Mejean, Isabelle, 2014. "Low-wage country competition and the quality content of high-wage country exports," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 93(1), pages 140-152.
    4. James E. Anderson & J. Peter Neary, 2003. "The Mercantilist Index of Trade Policy," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 44(2), pages 627-649, May.
    5. Freitag, Andreas & Lein, Sarah M., 2023. "Endogenous product adjustment and exchange rate pass-through," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 140(C).
    6. A. Auer, Raphael & Chaney, Thomas & Sauré, Philip, 2018. "Quality pricing-to-market," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 110(C), pages 87-102.
    7. repec:kap:iaecre:v:11:y:2005:i:2:p:163-173 is not listed on IDEAS
    8. Robert C. Feenstra, 1993. "Measuring the Welfare Effect of Quality Change: Theory and Application of Japanese Autos," NBER Working Papers 4401, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    9. Gabor Pula & Daniel Santabárbara, 2012. "Is china climbing up the quality ladder?," Working Papers 1209, Banco de España.
    10. Gabor Pula & Daniel Santabárbara, 2012. "Is china climbing up the quality ladder?," Working Papers 1209, Banco de España.
    11. repec:hhs:bofitp:2012_023 is not listed on IDEAS
    12. Ramos, Maria Priscila, 2007. "Politique Commerciale, Qualité et Environnement: une Application aux Négociations Commerciales entre l’Union Européenne et le Mercosur," MPRA Paper 12640, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    13. Lutz, Stefan H., 2002. "The Effects of Quotas on Vertical Intra-Industry Trade," ZEW Discussion Papers 02-61, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    14. Katherine M. Sauer, 2008. "The quality of parallel imports," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 6(44), pages 1-10.
    15. repec:ebl:ecbull:v:6:y:2008:i:44:p:1-10 is not listed 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. Goolsbee, Austan, 2004. "Taxes and the quality of capital," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(3-4), pages 519-543, March.
    2. Lutz, Stefan H., 2002. "The Effects of Quotas on Vertical Intra-Industry Trade," ZEW Discussion Papers 02-61, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    3. repec:kap:iaecre:v:11:y:2005:i:2:p:163-173 is not listed on IDEAS
    4. Feenstra, Robert C., 1995. "Estimating the effects of trade policy," Handbook of International Economics, in: G. M. Grossman & K. Rogoff (ed.), Handbook of International Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 30, pages 1553-1595, Elsevier.
    5. Kala Krishna, 1990. "Export Restraints With Imperfect Competition: A Selective Survey," NBER Working Papers 3244, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. Larue, Bruno & Gervais, Jean-Philippe, 1996. "The Impact Of The Canada-U.S. Hog/Pork Trade Dispute On The Composition Of U.S. Pork Imports," Agricultural and Resource Economics Review, Northeastern Agricultural and Resource Economics Association, vol. 25(2), pages 1-13, October.
    7. James Harrigan & Geoffrey Barrows, 2009. "Testing the Theory of Trade Policy: Evidence from the Abrupt End of the Multifiber Arrangement," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 91(2), pages 282-294, May.
    8. Nathalie Lavoie & Qihong Liu, 2007. "Pricing-to-Market: Price Discrimination or Product Differentiation?," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 89(3), pages 571-581.
    9. Andaluz, Joaquin, 2000. "On protection and vertical product differentiation," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 30(1), pages 77-97, January.
    10. Robert C. Feenstra, 1993. "Measuring the Welfare Effect of Quality Change: Theory and Application of Japanese Autos," NBER Working Papers 4401, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    11. Diewert, W. Erwin & Fox, Kevin J., 2016. "Kevin J. Fox Interview of W. Erwin Diewert," Microeconomics.ca working papers erwin_diewert-2016-6, Vancouver School of Economics, revised 02 Jun 2016.
    12. Stefan Lutz, 2005. "The Effect of Quotas on Domestic Product Price and Quality," International Advances in Economic Research, Springer;International Atlantic Economic Society, vol. 11(2), pages 163-173, May.
    13. Blonigen, Bruce A. & Liebman, Benjamin H. & Pierce, Justin R. & Wilson, Wesley W., 2013. "Are all trade protection policies created equal? Empirical evidence for nonequivalent market power effects of tariffs and quotas," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 89(2), pages 369-378.
    14. Daniel Bunting & Kevin J. Fox, 2014. "The Impact of Quarantine Policies on the Quality of Imports," Discussion Papers 2014-01, School of Economics, The University of New South Wales.
    15. Taeho Bark & Jaime Melo, 1987. "Export mix adjustment to the imposition of VERs: Alternative license allocation schemes," Review of World Economics (Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv), Springer;Institut für Weltwirtschaft (Kiel Institute for the World Economy), vol. 123(4), pages 668-678, December.
    16. Mordechal Kreinin & Elias Dinopoulos, 1995. "Protection of industry," Open Economies Review, Springer, vol. 6(2), pages 179-196, April.
    17. Zhou, Dongsheng & Spencer, Barbara J. & Vertinsky, Ilan, 2002. "Strategic trade policy with endogenous choice of quality and asymmetric costs," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 56(1), pages 205-232, January.
    18. S Lutz, 2005. "Can a Tariff on Foreign Competition Harm the Domestic Industry?," Economics Discussion Paper Series 0510, Economics, The University of Manchester.
    19. Ederington, Josh & McCalman, Phillip, 2013. "Technology adoption, government policy and tariffication," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 90(2), pages 337-347.
    20. Yves Bourdet, 1991. "Pricing policy and quality upgrading in the Swedish car market: Do import surveillance and exchange rate instability matter?," Open Economies Review, Springer, vol. 2(3), pages 255-274, October.
    21. Eric Hutton & John Whalley, 1994. "Reference Point Dependence for Specification Bias from Quality Upgrading," NBER Working Papers 4816, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.

    More about this item

    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:nbr:nberwo:2452. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.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.