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Specialization across goods and export quality

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  • Alcalá, Francisco

Abstract

This paper explores the link between specialization across goods and specialization within goods along the quality dimension. It develops a tractable many-country, many-industry Ricardian model with an integer number of heterogeneous firms producing each good, under a generic assumption about the distributions of firm efficiencies. In equilibrium, each country exports a range of qualities for each good that overlaps with the ranges of other countries following patterns that relate to wage differences, trade frictions, and absolute advantage. Under plausible assumptions and conditional on wages, the average quality of a country's exports within an industry increases with the country's revealed comparative advantage in the industry.

Suggested Citation

  • Alcalá, Francisco, 2016. "Specialization across goods and export quality," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 98(C), pages 216-232.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:inecon:v:98:y:2016:i:c:p:216-232
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jinteco.2015.09.005
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    1. V. A. Salnikov & A. A. Gnidchenko & D. I. Galimov, 2016. "Industry-level effects from integration between Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan through industrial cooperation," Studies on Russian Economic Development, Springer, vol. 27(1), pages 101-113, January.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Comparative advantage; Absolute advantage; Quality; Vertical differentiation; Cournot competition;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • F10 - International Economics - - Trade - - - General

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