IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hrv/faseco/34299161.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

New Trade Models, New Welfare Implications

Author

Listed:
  • Melitz, Marc J.
  • Redding, Stephen J.

Abstract

We show that endogenous firm selection provides a new welfare margin for heterogeneous firm models of trade (relative to homogeneous firm models). Under some parameter restrictions, the trade elasticity is constant and is a sufficient statistic for welfare, along with the domestic trade share. However, even small deviations from these restrictions imply that trade elasticities are variable and differ across markets and levels of trade costs. In this more general setting, the domestic trade share and endogenous trade elasticity are no longer sufficient statistics for welfare. Additional empirically observable moments of the micro structure also matter for welfare.

Suggested Citation

  • Melitz, Marc J. & Redding, Stephen J., 2015. "New Trade Models, New Welfare Implications," Scholarly Articles 34299161, Harvard University Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:hrv:faseco:34299161
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://dash.harvard.edu/bitstream/handle/1/34299161/65406/hhgft_012514_figs.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: http://dash.harvard.edu/bitstream/handle/1/34299161/65406/appendix_hhgft_012014.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Novy, Dennis, 2013. "International trade without CES: Estimating translog gravity," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 89(2), pages 271-282.
    2. Feenstra, Robert C., 2018. "Restoring the product variety and pro-competitive gains from trade with heterogeneous firms and bounded productivity," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 110(C), pages 16-27.
    3. 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.
    4. Sanghamitra Das & Mark J. Roberts & James R. Tybout, 2007. "Market Entry Costs, Producer Heterogeneity, and Export Dynamics," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 75(3), pages 837-873, May.
    5. Keith Head & Thierry Mayer & Mathias Thoenig, 2014. "Welfare and Trade without Pareto," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 104(5), pages 310-316, May.
    6. Hsieh, Chang-Tai & Ossa, Ralph, 2016. "A global view of productivity growth in China," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 102(C), pages 209-224.
    7. Andrew B. Bernard & Jonathan Eaton & J. Bradford Jensen & Samuel Kortum, 2003. "Plants and Productivity in International Trade," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 93(4), pages 1268-1290, September.
    8. Andrew Atkeson & Ariel Tomás Burstein, 2010. "Innovation, Firm Dynamics, and International Trade," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 118(3), pages 433-484, June.
    9. 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.
    10. Andrew B. Bernard & J. Bradford Jensen & Stephen J. Redding & Peter K. Schott, 2007. "Firms in International Trade," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 21(3), pages 105-130, Summer.
    11. Costinot, Arnaud & Rodríguez-Clare, Andrés, 2014. "Trade Theory with Numbers: Quantifying the Consequences of Globalization," Handbook of International Economics, in: Gopinath, G. & Helpman, . & Rogoff, K. (ed.), Handbook of International Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 0, pages 197-261, Elsevier.
    12. Robert C. Feenstra, 2010. "Measuring the gains from trade under monopolistic competition," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 43(1), pages 1-28, February.
    13. Costas Arkolakis & Arnaud Costinot & Andres Rodriguez-Clare, 2012. "New Trade Models, Same Old Gains?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 102(1), pages 94-130, February.
    14. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/5fjm1f1p0v93k9png4qo8ltnrf is not listed on IDEAS
    15. 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.
    16. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/f6h8764enu2lskk9p2m9j4i07 is not listed on IDEAS
    17. Melitz, Marc J. & Redding, Stephen J., 2014. "Heterogeneous Firms and Trade," Handbook of International Economics, in: Gopinath, G. & Helpman, . & Rogoff, K. (ed.), Handbook of International Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 0, pages 1-54, Elsevier.
    18. 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.
    19. Ossa, Ralph, 2015. "Why trade matters after all," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 97(2), pages 266-277.
    20. Swati Dhingra & John Morrow, 2019. "Monopolistic Competition and Optimum Product Diversity under Firm Heterogeneity," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 127(1), pages 196-232.
    21. Jonathan Eaton & Samuel Kortum, 2002. "Technology, Geography, and Trade," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 70(5), pages 1741-1779, September.
    22. Roberts, Mark J & Tybout, James R, 1997. "The Decision to Export in Colombia: An Empirical Model of Entry with Sunk Costs," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 87(4), pages 545-564, September.
    23. repec:hal:wpspec:info:hdl:2441/f6h8764enu2lskk9p2m9j4i07 is not listed on IDEAS
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Marc Melitz & Stephen Redding, 2013. "Firm Heterogeneity and Aggregate Welfare," Working Papers hal-03473900, HAL.
    2. Melitz, Marc J. & Redding, Stephen J., 2014. "Heterogeneous Firms and Trade," Handbook of International Economics, in: Gopinath, G. & Helpman, . & Rogoff, K. (ed.), Handbook of International Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 0, pages 1-54, Elsevier.
    3. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/7o52iohb7k6srk09n8t832o04 is not listed on IDEAS
    4. repec:hal:wpspec:info:hdl:2441/7o52iohb7k6srk09n8t832o04 is not listed on IDEAS
    5. Costinot, Arnaud & Rodríguez-Clare, Andrés, 2014. "Trade Theory with Numbers: Quantifying the Consequences of Globalization," Handbook of International Economics, in: Gopinath, G. & Helpman, . & Rogoff, K. (ed.), Handbook of International Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 0, pages 197-261, Elsevier.
    6. Gouel, Christophe & Jean, Sébastien, 2023. "Love of variety and gains from trade," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 158(C).
    7. Arnaud Costinot & Andrés Rodríguez‐Clare & Iván Werning, 2020. "Micro to Macro: Optimal Trade Policy With Firm Heterogeneity," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 88(6), pages 2739-2776, November.
    8. Costas Arkolakis & Arnaud Costinot & Dave Donaldson & Andrés Rodríguez-Clare, 2019. "The Elusive Pro-Competitive Effects of Trade," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 86(1), pages 46-80.
    9. Hsu, Wen-Tai & Lu, Yi & Wu, Guiying Laura, 2020. "Competition, markups, and gains from trade: A quantitative analysis of China between 1995 and 2004," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 122(C).
    10. Andrew B. Bernard & J. Bradford Jensen & Stephen J. Redding & Peter K. Schott, 2018. "Global Firms," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 56(2), pages 565-619, June.
    11. Head, Keith & Mayer, Thierry, 2014. "Gravity Equations: Workhorse,Toolkit, and Cookbook," Handbook of International Economics, in: Gopinath, G. & Helpman, . & Rogoff, K. (ed.), Handbook of International Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 0, pages 131-195, Elsevier.
    12. Joseph S. Shapiro & Reed Walker, 2018. "Why Is Pollution from US Manufacturing Declining? The Roles of Environmental Regulation, Productivity, and Trade," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 108(12), pages 3814-3854, December.
    13. Bas, Maria & Mayer, Thierry & Thoenig, Mathias, 2017. "From micro to macro: Demand, supply, and heterogeneity in the trade elasticity," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 108(C), pages 1-19.
    14. Ziran Ding, 2022. "Firm heterogeneity, variable markups, and multinational production: A review from trade policy perspective," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 36(5), pages 1311-1357, December.
    15. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/dambferfb7dfprc9m01g1j1k2 is not listed on IDEAS
    16. Joseph S. Shapiro & Reed Walker, 2015. "Why is Pollution from U.S. Manufacturing Declining" The Roles of Trade, Regulation, Productivity, and Preferences," Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers 1982R, Cowles Foundation for Research in Economics, Yale University, revised Sep 2016.
    17. Feenstra, Robert C., 2018. "Restoring the product variety and pro-competitive gains from trade with heterogeneous firms and bounded productivity," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 110(C), pages 16-27.
    18. repec:hal:wpspec:info:hdl:2441/dambferfb7dfprc9m01g1j1k2 is not listed on IDEAS
    19. di Giovanni, Julian & Levchenko, Andrei A., 2013. "Firm entry, trade, and welfare in Zipf's world," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 89(2), pages 283-296.
    20. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/nki2gcedn93280ns6fslbhdnm is not listed on IDEAS
    21. Bolatto, Stefano & Moramarco, Graziano, 2023. "Gains from trade and their quantification: Does sectoral disaggregation matter?," International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 174(C), pages 44-68.
    22. Fernandes,Ana Margarida & Klenow,Peter J. & Meleshchuk,Sergii & Pierola,Martha Denisse & Rodriguez-Clare,Andres, 2018. "The Intensive Margin in Trade," Policy Research Working Paper Series 8625, The World Bank.
    23. Ourens, Guzmán, 2016. "Trade and growth with heterogeneous firms revisited," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 100(C), pages 194-202.
    24. ARA Tomohiro, 2021. "Competition, Productivity and Trade, Reconsidered," Discussion papers 21032, Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry (RIETI).
    25. Flach, Lisandra & Unger, Florian, 2022. "Quality and gravity in international trade," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 137(C).

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • F12 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Models of Trade with Imperfect Competition and Scale Economies; Fragmentation
    • F13 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Trade Policy; International Trade Organizations
    • F41 - International Economics - - Macroeconomic Aspects of International Trade and Finance - - - Open Economy Macroeconomics

    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:hrv:faseco:34299161. 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: Office for Scholarly Communication (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/deharus.html .

    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.