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Non-homothetic preferences, parallel imports and the extensive margin of international trade

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  • Reto Foellmi
  • Christian Hepenstrick
  • Josef Zweimüller

Abstract

We study international trade in a model where consumers have non-homothetic preferences and where household income restricts the extensive margin of consumption. In equilibrium, monopolistic producers set high (low) prices in rich (poor) countries but a threat of parallel trade restricts the scope of price discrimination between countries. The threat of parallel trade allows differences in per capita incomes to have a strong impact on the extensive margin of trade, whereas differences in population sizes have a weaker effect. We also show that the welfare gains from trade liberalization are biased towards rich countries. We extend our model to more than two countries; to unequal incomes within countries; and to more general specifications of non-homothetic preferences. Our basic results are robust to these extensions.

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Bibliographic Info

Paper provided by Universitaet Bern, Departement Volkswirtschaft in its series Diskussionsschriften with number dp1009.

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Date of creation: Jul 2010
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Handle: RePEc:ube:dpvwib:dp1009

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Keywords: Heterogenous markups; non-homothetic preferences; parallel imports; extensive margin of trade;

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Citations

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Cited by:
  1. Christian Hepenstrick, 2010. "Per-capita incomes and the extensive margin of bilateral trade," IEW - Working Papers 519, Institute for Empirical Research in Economics - University of Zurich.
  2. Hélène LATZER & Florian MAYNERIS, 2012. "Income distribution and vertical comparative advantage Theory and evidence," Discussion Papers (IRES - Institut de Recherches Economiques et Sociales) 2012018, Université catholique de Louvain, Institut de Recherches Economiques et Sociales (IRES), revised 20 Oct 2012.
  3. Raphael Anton Auer & Thomas Chaney & Philip Ulrich Sauré, 2012. "Quality Pricing-to-Market," Working Papers 2012-11, Swiss National Bank.
  4. Claudia Bernasconi, 2013. "Similarity of income distributions and the extensive and intensive margin of bilateral trade flows," ECON - Working Papers 115, Department of Economics - University of Zurich.

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