International Economies of Scale and the Gains from Trade

In this paper, we present a two-country trade model with external economies of scale that emerge on an international level but are partially localized in each country. First, we show that the larger country exports the good produced in an industry with external economies of scale in the trading equilibrium. Second, we investigate the welfare effects of trade for the following two cases: (I) the case where external economies are completely localized in autarky; (II) the case where external economies are internationally effective in autarky. In case (II), it is shown that trade can be welfare-decreasing for both countries.     

Gains from Trade with Lump-sum Compensation

This paper analyses the use of lump-sum compensation to ensure a Pareto improvement under free trade. It first shows how households, which are aware of the free-trade and compensation policy, may falsify autarkic consumption to get larger transfers. Despite consumption falsification, however, trade could still be gainful using lump-sum compensation under certain conditions. This paper also suggests a case in which an incentive-compatible lump-sum compensation scheme exists.     

Comparative Advantage With and Without Gains from Trade

In 1980, Deardorff, and Dixit and Norman, generalized the law of comparative advantage to show that the value of net imports at autarky prices (or DDN index) is nonnegative, so that net imports are correlated with autarky prices. The DDN index can be decomposed into the sum of (i) the equivalent variation of gains from trade, and (ii) the difference in GNP at autarky prices between autarky and trade. Several examples are given of classical and neoclassical economies where (i) or (ii) can be zero. Hence gains from trade are sufficient but not necessary for the existence of comparative advantage.     

Gains from Trade versus Gains from Migration: What Makes Them So Different?

Would unrestricted “economic” migration enhance the potential gains from free trade? With free migration, consumers' feasible sets become non‐convex. Under standard assumptions, however, Walrasian equilibrium exists for a continuum of individuals with dispersed ability to afford each of a finite set of possible migration plans. Then familiar conditions ensuring potential Pareto gains from trade also ensure that free migration generates similar supplementary gains, relative to an arbitrary status quo. As with the gains from customs unions, however, wealth may have to be redistributed across international borders.     

Water on Fire: Gains from Electricity Trade

In light of the ongoing liberalization of electricity trade in the Nordic countries, and perhaps in Northern Europe, we argue that gains from electricity trade may be different from those traditionally associated with comparative advantages and economies of scale. In particular, we consider gains arising from the exploitation of technological complementarities between hydro and thermal systems. Our theoretical framework highlights essential features of the two systems and allows for an analysis of effects of trade. We study three trading regimes, which may arise either endogenously or because of trade regulations: day–night power exchange, seasonal energy banking and unbalanced trade. The analysis suggests that gradual trade liberalization may be costly.     

全球公共产品与多边贸易体制改革

全球化的发展使得公共产品的提供超出了民族国家的管辖范畴,以多边协调机制为基础的全球公共产品供应体制随之产生。以GATT/WTO为核心的多边贸易体制提供了与贸易有关的全球公共产品。然而多边贸易体制在全球公共产品的供应中,存在着供给与需求不符、成员受益不均、供应机制缺乏民主等问题。多边贸易体制改革应以发展为导向,保障发展中国家的权利,满足发展中国家对全球公共产品的需求。     

Imperfect Competition and the Gains from Trade in a Macro Duopoly Model

A general-equilibrium duopoly trade model is developed. In the micro model, constant-elasticity market demand curves produce backward-bending reaction functions. This is combined with a macro analysis in which the real wage is determined competitively, while nominal variables depend on the money supply. Trade can lead to large increases in aggregate output, employment, and real wages. The gains from trade are the result of increases in market size, and greater competition in each market. The benefits of trade are largest when marginal-cost curves slope downward and the labor supply curve is elastic.     

Structural Estimation of Variety Gains from Trade Integration in Asia

This article studies the variety gains of trade integration in Asia. Adopting a heterogeneous firm model of trade of monopolistic competition allowed us to estimate not only the welfare gains because of country specialisation, but also the variety gains arising from trade integration. The underlying structural parameters were estimated econometrically, based on a large panel of firm‐level data for the Asian economies (ORIANA). Our empirical findings suggest that, when relaxing the assumption of firm homogeneity and accounting for export market entry costs, the gains from trade integration are higher than in conventional models with representative firms.     

Dynamic Gains from International Trade with Imperfect Competition and Market Power

This paper revisits the gains from trade under imperfect competition by explicitly modeling strategic competition and entry. The papers highlights a welfare cost of imperfect competition, due to inefficiently high entry. Through increasing competition, international trade lowers price–cost markups and reduces excessive entry. This adds on a competitive channel for gains from trade to the well-known product diversity channel from previous literature. Both channels will increase the return to investment and raise the steady-state capital stock. An alternative case is possible, however, where there is inefficiently low entry. In that case, trade tends to be anticompetitive, raising price–cost markups and encouraging increased entry.     

Environmental Policies, Comparative Advantage and the Gains/Losses from International Trade

A multihousehold economy with multilateral nondepletable externalities, environmental (output) taxation and governmental production of pure, nonexclusive and nonrivalrous public goods is assumed. Modelling many different households the "almost perfect" isomorphism between the normative analysis of public goods and environmental policies is highlighted. Globally valid necessary and sufficient conditions for gains from international trade are derived and interpreted. A simple yet general environmental policy rule ensuring trade gains is put forward. The law of comparative advantage is generalized to economies with multilateral nondepletable externalities and over or underproduced pure public goods.     

Trade Gains when the Opportunity to Trade Changes the State of Information

J. S. Mill suggested that the destruction of old preferences and their replacement by new are among the greatest benefits imparted by free trade. However, Mill's argument relied on a possibly controversial ethical judgment. The present note approaches the question posed by Mill with only the conventional Paretian ethical baggage, and shows that, if all agents are rational in a sense to be made clear and if the wellbeing of each agent is independent of irrelevant alternatives, then trade is potentially gainful.     

International Trade and the Environment: Theoretical and Policy Linkages

I review and extend three approaches to trade and environmental policies: competitive general equilibrium, oligopoly and monopolistic competition. The first two have surprisingly similar implications: deviations from first-best rules are justified only by constraints on policy choice (which motivates what I call a “single dividend” approach to environmental policy), and taxes and emissions standards differ in ways which reflect the Le Chatelier principle. I also show how environmental taxes may lead to a catastrophic relocation of industry in the presence of agglomeration effects, although not necessarily if there is a continuum of industries which differ in pollution intensity. *An earlier version was presented as an invited plenary lecture to the European Association for Environmental and Resource Economics Conference, Oslo, 1999.     

Gains from Trade in a Differential Game Model of Asymmetric Oligopoly

This paper revisits a classical topic of trade gains in a differential game model of oligopoly in which Home and Foreign firms differ in the number and cost. After deriving the feedback Nash equilibrium, we provide examples to consider how the difference in the number of firms or costs affects gainfulness of trade. We prove that feedback strategies can result in implications for trade gains which are sharply different from the open-loop case.     

Trade Gains, Paretian Transfer and the Tragedy of the Commons

Consider trade liberalization between two countries, each of which produces two private goods and provides on a voluntary basis one public good (the common). In these circumstances, what are the consequences of trade liberalization on the production of the public good and on welfare in both countries? Using a Ricardian framework, we first show that the opening of trade increases the opportunity cost of producing the public good in both countries and will therefore reduce the aggregate supply of the public good. On the other hand, at the autarky equilibrium, only one country supplies the public good, the other “free rides”. The analysis of the welfare incidence of the opening of trade then reveals that the country which provides the public good under autarky always enjoys a welfare gain from trade while the free rider under autarky does not unless the terms of trade are sufficiently in its favour to compensate for the reduction in the supply of the common. Finally, if all countries involved in trade liberalization can without cost coordinate their supplies of the common, then the implementation of the first-best outcome is shown to be possible with a conditional Paretian transfer scheme.     

Divergence,Convergence, and the Gains From Trade*

This paper is about a country which has enjoyed a comparative advantage in producing some good(s) and suddenly finds its trading partners increasing their productivity in producing precisely those same goods; e.g., the US with its big lead in many kinds of manufacturing production in the 1950s and 1960s, and the rest of the world catching up in the same kinds of goods in the 1970s and 1980s. This is what the paper means by “convergence.” We show that such convergence results in an absolute loss of real income and standard of living for the original “leader” country.     

South-South Trade in Manufactures: A Modified Heckscher-Ohlin Model of Bilateral Trade and Some Preliminary Estimates

This paper attempts to interpret the recent growth of south-south trade in manufactures, with a view to highlight the Key factors that propel its growth, and to examine its implications for north-south trade. This is done in the framework of a modified Heckscher-Ohlin model of bilateral trade between three tiers of countries, viz., the developed countries of the OECD, the Newly Industrializing Countries (NICs), and the Less Developed Countries (LDCs). The paper also provides empirical estimates from trade data for the years 1970–1982 in order to illustrate a key proposition of the model. [420]     

Interregional Trade Linkages and the Commercial Role: The Spanish Case

The development of a national or regional economy depends on its own actions as much as on those of its commercial partners. Trade transmits economic events from one economy to another. The type and the degree of interdependence between territories—regions or countries—determines the consequences of external actions in a region. Multipliers translate the effects of a change in one variable on the others. Using an input–output scheme to express interregional commercial flows, some coefficients are developed to classify and identify the role that each region plays in interregional trade. An empirical application of the methodology on Spanish Comunidades Autonomas is presented. A preliminary version of this paper was presented at the Fifty-Eight International Atlantic Economic Conference, Chicago, October 7–10, 2004. The authors greatly appreciate the comments and suggestions from the participants at the meeting. The authors also wish to thank an anonymous referee and editor for their constructive suggestions and comments. This research was partially supported by the DGI project SEJ2004-07924/ECON.     

Labor Market Institutions and the Second-Best Tariff

Labor market distortions provide a second-best case for protection. However, the implications are less obvious when the product market is imperfectly competitive too, as suggested by several partial equilibrium studies. This paper adopts a general equilibrium approach, combining unionization in labor markets with monopolistic competition in product markets. Two labor market settings are considered: fully centralized wage bargaining ("Scandinavia", for short) and negotiation at the firm level ("Latin America"). The competitive labor market case is used as a benchmark. It is shown that in Latin America the second-best tariff is higher, and the welfare level lower, than in the benchmark case. Scandinavia reaches the first best under free trade.     

全球性税制改革的经验与教训

20世纪80年代以来,税制改革风潮几乎遍及了全世界。通过对发达国家和发展中国家税制改革的研究和世界银行、国际货币组织的研究,为确定最佳税制改革方案将起到有益的借鉴作用。