IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/eecrev/v100y2017icp1-27.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Product heterogeneity, cross-country taste differences, and the growth of world trade

Author

Listed:
  • Auer, Raphael A.

Abstract

This paper extends the analysis of the “home market” effect in Krugman (1980) to a flexible demand structure and examines the dynamic effects of trade liberalization. I first develop a model in which consumers are heterogeneous in their valuations of product attributes and firms offer goods of heterogeneous attribute levels. With international trade in the presence of cross-country taste differences, consumption is home-biased in the immediate aftermath of liberalization. Once industries specialize, the volume of trade grows and so do the gains from liberalization. In the long-run equilibrium with open markets, the volume of trade is diminished by the existence of cross-country taste differences only if countries specialize completely. I then show that the adaptation of industrial composition to the demand structure of the European common market was associated with growing within-European trade in the automotive industry.

Suggested Citation

  • Auer, Raphael A., 2017. "Product heterogeneity, cross-country taste differences, and the growth of world trade," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 100(C), pages 1-27.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:eecrev:v:100:y:2017:i:c:p:1-27
    DOI: 10.1016/j.euroecorev.2017.05.010
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0014292117301149
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.euroecorev.2017.05.010?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Randy Brenkers & Frank Verboven, 2006. "Liberalizing A Distribution System: The European Car Market," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 4(1), pages 216-251, March.
    2. Kiminori Matsuyama, 1992. "A Simple Model of Sectoral Adjustment," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 59(2), pages 375-387.
    3. Joshua Aizenman & Eileen Brooks, 2008. "Globalization and Taste Convergence: the Cases of Wine and Beer," Review of International Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 16(2), pages 217-233, May.
    4. Goldberg, Pinelopi K. & Verboven, Frank, 2005. "Market integration and convergence to the Law of One Price: evidence from the European car market," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 65(1), pages 49-73, January.
    5. Pablo Fajgelbaum & Gene M. Grossman & Elhanan Helpman, 2011. "Income Distribution, Product Quality, and International Trade," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 119(4), pages 721-765.
    6. Jean Imbs & Isabelle Mejean, 2015. "Elasticity Optimism," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 7(3), pages 43-83, July.
    7. Krugman, Paul, 1980. "Scale Economies, Product Differentiation, and the Pattern of Trade," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 70(5), pages 950-959, December.
    8. Head, Keith & Mayer, Thierry & Ries, John, 2002. "On the Pervasiveness of Home Market Effects," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 69(275), pages 371-390, August.
    9. Crozet, Matthieu & Trionfetti, Federico, 2008. "Trade costs and the Home Market Effect," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 76(2), pages 309-321, December.
    10. Brülhart, Marius & Trionfetti, Federico, 2009. "A test of trade theories when expenditure is home biased," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 53(7), pages 830-845, October.
    11. Pinelopi Koujianou Goldberg & Frank Verboven, 2001. "The Evolution of Price Dispersion in the European Car Market," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 68(4), pages 811-848.
    12. Davis, Donald R. & Weinstein, David E., 1999. "Economic geography and regional production structure: An empirical investigation," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 43(2), pages 379-407, February.
    13. Alejandro Cuñat & Marco Maffezzoli, 2007. "Can Comparative Advantage Explain the Growth of us Trade?," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 117(520), pages 583-602, April.
    14. James Levinsohn & Steven Berry & Ariel Pakes, 1999. "Voluntary Export Restraints on Automobiles: Evaluating a Trade Policy," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 89(3), pages 400-430, June.
    15. 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.
    16. Bruce A. Blonigen & Anson Soderbery, 2019. "Measuring the Benefits of Foreign Product Variety with an Accurate Variety Set," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Foreign Direct Investment, chapter 15, pages 501-538, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    17. Alan V. Deardorff, 2011. "Determinants of Bilateral Trade: Does Gravity Work in a Neoclassical World?," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Robert M Stern (ed.), Comparative Advantage, Growth, And The Gains From Trade And Globalization A Festschrift in Honor of Alan V Deardorff, chapter 24, pages 267-293, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    18. Kiminori Matsuyama, 2000. "A Ricardian Model with a Continuum of Goods under Nonhomothetic Preferences: Demand Complementarities, Income Distribution, and North-South Trade," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 108(6), pages 1093-1120, December.
    19. Christian Broda & David E. Weinstein, 2006. "Globalization and the Gains From Variety," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 121(2), pages 541-585.
    20. Behrens, Kristian & Lamorgese, Andrea R. & Ottaviano, Gianmarco I.P. & Tabuchi, Takatoshi, 2009. "Beyond the home market effect: Market size and specialization in a multi-country world," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 79(2), pages 259-265, November.
    21. Davis, Donald R, 1998. "The Home Market, Trade, and Industrial Structure," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 88(5), pages 1264-1276, December.
    22. James R. Markusen, 2021. "Explaining the Volume of Trade: An Eclectic Approach," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: BROADENING TRADE THEORY Incorporating Market Realities into Traditional Models, chapter 9, pages 177-186, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    23. Gordon H. Hanson & Chong Xiang, 2004. "The Home-Market Effect and Bilateral Trade Patterns," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 94(4), pages 1108-1129, September.
    24. Kei-Mu Yi, 2003. "Can Vertical Specialization Explain the Growth of World Trade?," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 111(1), pages 52-102, February.
    25. Bernard, Andrew B. & Bradford Jensen, J., 1999. "Exceptional exporter performance: cause, effect, or both?," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 47(1), pages 1-25, February.
    26. David Atkin, 2013. "Trade, Tastes, and Nutrition in India," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 103(5), pages 1629-1663, August.
    27. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/c8dmi8nm4pdjkuc9g8o4o0m0g is not listed on IDEAS
    28. James E. Anderson & Eric van Wincoop, 2004. "Trade Costs," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 42(3), pages 691-751, September.
    29. Robert C. Feenstra & James R. Markusen & Andrew K. Rose, 2001. "Using the gravity equation to differentiate among alternative theories of trade," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 34(2), pages 430-447, May.
    30. Elhanan Helpman & Marc Melitz & Yona Rubinstein, 2008. "Estimating Trade Flows: Trading Partners and Trading Volumes," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 123(2), pages 441-487.
    31. Uy, Timothy & Yi, Kei-Mu & Zhang, Jing, 2013. "Structural change in an open economy," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 60(6), pages 667-682.
    32. Carolyn L. Evans, 2001. "Home bias in trade: location or foreign-ness?," Staff Reports 128, Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
    33. Juan Carlos Hallak, 2010. "A Product-Quality View of the Linder Hypothesis," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 92(3), pages 453-466, August.
    34. Baier, Scott L. & Bergstrand, Jeffrey H., 2001. "The growth of world trade: tariffs, transport costs, and income similarity," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 53(1), pages 1-27, February.
    35. Raphael A. Auer, 2010. "Consumer Heterogeneity and the Impact of Trade Liberalization: How Representative is the Representative Agent Framework?," Working Papers 2010-13, Swiss National Bank.
    36. Davis, Donald R. & Weinstein, David E., 2003. "Market access, economic geography and comparative advantage: an empirical test," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 59(1), pages 1-23, January.
    37. Holmes, Thomas J. & Stevens, John J., 2005. "Does home market size matter for the pattern of trade?," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 65(2), pages 489-505, March.
    38. Keith Head & Thierry Mayer & John Ries, 2000. "On the Pervasiveness of Home Market Effects," Econometric Society World Congress 2000 Contributed Papers 0862, Econometric Society.
    39. Keith Head & John Ries, 2001. "Increasing Returns versus National Product Differentiation as an Explanation for the Pattern of U.S.-Canada Trade," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(4), pages 858-876, September.
    40. Ana Cecília Fieler, 2011. "Nonhomotheticity and Bilateral Trade: Evidence and a Quantitative Explanation," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 79(4), pages 1069-1101, July.
    41. Behrens, Kristian & Lamorgese, Andrea R. & Ottaviano, Gianmarco I.P. & Tabuchi, Takatoshi, 2009. "Beyond the home market effect: Market size and specialization in a multi-country world," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 79(2), pages 259-265, November.
    42. repec:hal:wpspec:info:hdl:2441/c8dmi8nm4pdjkuc9g8o4o0m0g is not listed on IDEAS
    43. Peter K. Schott, 2004. "Across-Product Versus Within-Product Specialization in International Trade," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 119(2), pages 647-678.
    44. David Hummels, 2007. "Transportation Costs and International Trade in the Second Era of Globalization," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 21(3), pages 131-154, Summer.
    45. Bergstrand, Jeffrey H, 1990. "The Heckscher-Ohlin-Samuelson Model, the Linder Hypothesis and the Determinants of Bilateral Intra-industry Trade," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 100(403), pages 1216-1229, December.
    46. 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.
    47. Marc J. Melitz, 2003. "The Impact of Trade on Intra-Industry Reallocations and Aggregate Industry Productivity," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 71(6), pages 1695-1725, November.
    48. Kei-Mu Yi, 2010. "Can Multistage Production Explain the Home Bias in Trade?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 100(1), pages 364-393, March.
    49. Anderson, Simon P. & De Palma, Andre & Thisse, Jacques-Francois, 1987. "The CES is a discrete choice model?," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 24(2), pages 139-140.
    50. Berry, Steven & Levinsohn, James & Pakes, Ariel, 1995. "Automobile Prices in Market Equilibrium," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 63(4), pages 841-890, July.
    51. Rolf Weder, 2003. "Comparative home-market advantage: An empirical analysis of British and American exports," Review of World Economics (Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv), Springer;Institut für Weltwirtschaft (Kiel Institute for the World Economy), vol. 139(2), pages 220-247, June.
    52. Pablo D. Fajgelbaum, 2011. "Income Distribution, Product Quality and International Trade," 2011 Meeting Papers 415, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    53. Frank Verboven, 1996. "International Price Discrimination in the European Car Market," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 27(2), pages 240-268, Summer.
    54. Kim J. Ruhl, 2008. "The International Elasticity Puzzle," Working Papers 08-30, New York University, Leonard N. Stern School of Business, Department of Economics.
    55. Melitz, Marc J. & Burstein, Ariel, 2013. "Trade Liberalization and Firm Dynamics," Scholarly Articles 34557509, Harvard University Department of Economics.
    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. Coşar, A. Kerem & Grieco, Paul L.E. & Li, Shengyu & Tintelnot, Felix, 2018. "What drives home market advantage?," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 110(C), pages 135-150.
    2. Dvir, Eyal & Strasser, Georg, 2018. "Does marketing widen borders? Cross-country price dispersion in the European car market," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 112(C), pages 134-149.
    3. Hintermann, Beat & Ludwig, Markus, 2023. "Home country bias in international emissions trading: Evidence from the EU ETS," Resource and Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 71(C).
    4. Alexander Osharin & Valery Verbus & Irina Bakunina & Vera Silaeva & Marina Silaeva, 2020. "Markups in a two-country monopolistic competition model of trade with heterogeneous consumers," Journal of Economic Structures, Springer;Pan-Pacific Association of Input-Output Studies (PAPAIOS), vol. 9(1), pages 1-12, December.

    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. Raphael A. Auer, 2013. "Product Heterogeneity, Cross-Country Taste Differences, and the Consumption Home Bias," Working Papers 13.01, Swiss National Bank, Study Center Gerzensee.
    2. Raphael Auer, 2009. "Product Heterogeneity, Within-Industry Trade Patterns, and the Home Bias of Consumption?," Working Papers 09.05, Swiss National Bank, Study Center Gerzensee.
    3. Raphael A. Auer, 2010. "Consumer Heterogeneity and the Impact of Trade Liberalization: How Representative is the Representative Agent Framework?," Working Papers 2010-13, Swiss National Bank.
    4. Brülhart, Marius & Trionfetti, Federico, 2009. "A test of trade theories when expenditure is home biased," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 53(7), pages 830-845, October.
    5. Erhardt, Katharina, 2017. "On home market effects and firm heterogeneity," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 98(C), pages 316-340.
    6. Crozet, Matthieu & Trionfetti, Federico, 2008. "Trade costs and the Home Market Effect," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 76(2), pages 309-321, December.
    7. Jonathan I. Dingel, 2017. "The Determinants of Quality Specialization," Review of Economic Studies, Oxford University Press, vol. 84(4), pages 1551-1582.
    8. Pablo Fajgelbaum & Gene M. Grossman & Elhanan Helpman, 2011. "Income Distribution, Product Quality, and International Trade," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 119(4), pages 721-765.
    9. A. Auer, Raphael & Chaney, Thomas & Sauré, Philip, 2018. "Quality pricing-to-market," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 110(C), pages 87-102.
    10. Garcia Pires, Armando J., 2013. "Home market effects with endogenous costs of production," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 74(C), pages 47-58.
    11. Breinlich, Holger & Cuñat, Alejandro, 2013. "Geography, non-homotheticity, and industrialization: A quantitative analysis," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 103(C), pages 133-153.
    12. Raphael A. Auer, 2009. "Taste Heterogeneity, Trade, and the Within-Industry Home Market Effect," Swiss Journal of Economics and Statistics (SJES), Swiss Society of Economics and Statistics (SSES), vol. 145(IV), pages 387-403, December.
    13. Yo-Yi Huang & Cheng-Te Lee & Deng-Shing Huang, 2014. "Home Market Effects In The Chamberlinian–Ricardian World," Bulletin of Economic Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 66(S1), pages 36-54, December.
    14. Chen, Natalie & Novy, Dennis, 2008. "International Trade Integration: A Disaggregated Approach," CEPR Discussion Papers 7103, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    15. Pablo D. Fajgelbaum & Amit K. Khandelwal, 2016. "Measuring the Unequal Gains from Trade," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 131(3), pages 1113-1180.
    16. J. Suedekum, 2007. "Identifying the dynamic home market effect in a three-country model," Journal of Economics, Springer, vol. 92(3), pages 209-228, December.
    17. Martín Tobal, 2017. "Regulatory Entry Barriers, Rent Shifting and the Home Market Effect," Review of International Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 25(1), pages 76-97, February.
    18. Arnaud Costinot & Dave Donaldson & Margaret Kyle & Heidi Williams, 2019. "The More We Die, The More We Sell? A Simple Test of the Home-Market Effect," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 134(2), pages 843-894.
    19. Philip Sauré, 2012. "Bounded Love of Variety and Patterns of Trade," Open Economies Review, Springer, vol. 23(4), pages 645-674, September.
    20. Jacks, David S. & Meissner, Christopher M. & Novy, Dennis, 2011. "Trade booms, trade busts, and trade costs," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 83(2), pages 185-201, March.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Intra-industry trade; Monopolistic competition; Increasing returns; Home-market effect; Product heterogeneity; Industrial structure; Firm dynamics; European economic integration;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • F12 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Models of Trade with Imperfect Competition and Scale Economies; Fragmentation
    • F15 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Economic Integration
    • L15 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Information and Product Quality
    • L16 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Industrial Organization and Macroeconomics; Macroeconomic Industrial Structure

    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:eee:eecrev:v:100:y:2017:i:c:p:1-27. 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: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/eer .

    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.