The authors analyze the relationship between international trade and the quality of economic institutions such as contract enforcement, rule of law, or property rights. The literature on institutions has argued, both empirically and theoretically, that larger firms care less about good institutions and that higher inequality leads to worse institutions. Recent literature on international trade enables the authors to analyze economies with heterogeneous firms, and argue that trade opening leads to a reallocation of production in which large firms grow larger, while small firms become smaller or disappear. Combining these two strands of literature, the authors build a model that has two key features. First, preferences over institutional quality differ across firms and depend on firm size. Second, institutional quality is endogenously determined in a political economy framework. They show that trade opening can worsen institutions when it increases the political power of a small elite of large exporters that prefer to maintain bad institutions. The detrimental effect of trade on institutions is most likely to occur when a small country captures a sufficiently large share of world exports in sectors characterized by economic profits.
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Benabou, R., 1996.
"Unequal Societies,"
Working Papers
96-17, C.V. Starr Center for Applied Economics, New York University.
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Elhanan Helpman & Marc J. Melitz & Stephen R. Yeaple, 2003.
"Export versus FDI,"
NBER Working Papers
9439, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
[Downloadable!] (restricted)
Helpman, Elhanan & Melitz, Marc J & Yeaple, Stephen R, 2003.
"Export versus FDI,"
CEPR Discussion Papers
3741, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
[Downloadable!] (restricted)
Aaron Tornell & Philip R. Lane, 1999.
"The Voracity Effect,"
American Economic Review,
American Economic Association, vol. 89(1), pages 22-46, March.
[Downloadable!] (restricted)
Simeon Djankov & Rafael La Porta & Florencio Lopez-De-Silanes & Andrei Shleifer, 2002.
"The Regulation Of Entry,"
The Quarterly Journal of Economics,
MIT Press, vol. 117(1), pages 1-37, February.
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Other versions:
Simeon Djankov & Rafael La Porta & Florencio LopezdeSilanes & Andrei Shleifer, 2000.
"The Regulation of Entry,"
NBER Working Papers
7892, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
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Djankov, Simeon & La Porta, Rafael & Lopez-de-Silanes, Florencio & Shleifer, Andrei, 2001.
"The Regulation of Entry,"
Working Paper Series
rwp01-015, Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government.
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