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Bilateral Trade, Relative Prices, and Trade Costs

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  • The University of Iowa
  • Michael Waugh

Abstract

Poor countries import a larger volume of goods from rich countries, than rich countries import from poor countries. Furthermore, there is little difference in comparable price indices for tradable goods between rich and poor countries. Standard empirical implementation of structural gravity models with distance and other symmetric relationships for trade costs cannot account for both of these facts. To account for these facts, I argue that trade costs must be systematically asymmetric with poor countries facing higher costs to export relative to rich countries. I then demonstrate that asymmetry is quantitatively important accounting for at least a third of the variation in bilateral trade --- on par or more important than distance and other symmetric relationships. Given these observations, I propose a trade cost function and demonstrate how it can reconcile the discrepancy between the results of Eaton and Kortum (2001) and Hsieh and Klenow's (2007) observations regarding cross-country differences in the price of investment goods.

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Bibliographic Info

Paper provided by Society for Economic Dynamics in its series 2008 Meeting Papers with number 781.

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Date of creation: 2008
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Handle: RePEc:red:sed008:781

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  1. Eaton, Jonathan & Kortum, Samuel, 2001. "Trade in capital goods," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 45(7), pages 1195-1235.
  2. Balistreri, Edward J. & Hillberry, Russell H., 2007. "Structural estimation and the border puzzle," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 72(2), pages 451-463, July.
  3. Kravis, Irving B & Lipsey, Robert E, 1988. "National Price Levels and the Prices of Tradables and Nontradables," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 78(2), pages 474-78, May.
  4. Hummels, David & Lugovskyy, Volodymyr & Skiba, Alexandre, 2009. "The trade reducing effects of market power in international shipping," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 89(1), pages 84-97, May.
  5. Edward Balistreri & Russell Hillberry, 2006. "Trade frictions and welfare in the gravity model: how much of the iceberg melts?," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 39(1), pages 247-265, February.
  6. University of Iowa & Michael E. Waugh, 2007. "International Trade and Income Differences," 2007 Meeting Papers 492, Society for Economic Dynamics.
  7. Robert C. Feenstra & Robert E. Lipsey & Harry P. Bowen, 1997. "World Trade Flows, 1970-1992, with Production and Tariff Data," NBER Working Papers 5910, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  8. 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.
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Cited by:
  1. Sam Kortum & John Romalis & Brent Neiman & Jonathan Eaton, 2010. "Trade and the Global Recession," 2010 Meeting Papers 1340, Society for Economic Dynamics.

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