Deconstructing gravity: trade costs and extensive and intensive margins

Abstract This paper uses data on US exports to decompose exports into the number of exporting firms (the extensive margin) and average export sales (the intensive margin). We show how a range of proxies for trade costs has different impacts on the two margins. Distance has a negative effect on both margins, but the magnitude is considerably larger for the extensive margin. Most of the variables capturing language, internal geography, infrastructure and import cost barriers work through the extensive margin. We show that these results are consistent with a Melitz‐style model of trade with heterogeneous firm productivity and fixed costs.     

The extensive and intensive margins of Spanish trade

Recent empirical research highlights that differences in trade flows across countries, products and years are governed by two margins: the intensive margin and the extensive margin. The analysis of the relative contribution of each margin is very important to determine which policies can be more efficient to foster trade at the aggregate, geographic, product or firm level. We use the whole universe of firm level transaction data to analyse the relative contribution of these margins to changes in Spanish trade flows during the 1997–2007 period. We first apply the methodology proposed by Bernard et al. (2009 Bernard, A.B., Jensen, J.B., Redding, S.J. and Schott, P.K. 2009. The margins of US trade. American Economic Review: Papers & Proceedings, 99(2): 487–93. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] [Google Scholar]) to decompose trade variation over time into three components: net entry of firms, product-country switching and value growth by regular trading firms. The first two components correspond to the extensive margin and the last one refers to the intensive margin. We find that short-run changes in exports and imports are governed by firms’ intensive margin; however, in the long-run, both the extensive and the intensive margins are equally important to foster trade. We also examine the importance of the trade margins at the cross-sectional level for the year 2007. We find that large differences in the Spanish trade flows across countries and products, especially in the case of exports, are explained by the number of firms that participate in trade, which is consistent with the fact that the number of trading partners decline significantly with distance.     

Ethnic networks and trade: Intensive versus extensive margins

Ethnic networks have been associated with increased international trade, although studies have not differentiated between entry into foreign markets and trade expansion. We find that ethnic networks increase trade on the intensive margin but not on the extensive margin.     

The intensive and the extensive margins: not only an international issue

Empirical evidence shows that quantity (intensive margin) and variety availability (extensive margin) have effects of different magnitude on populations’ welfare. Indeed, the pattern of a market dynamics may cause changes in welfare inequality. Low income consumers benefit more from quantity than high income consumers, who are more interested in enjoying variety. These facts have been usually addressed as consequences of trade liberalization by international trade theory. However, market dynamics are also present within the borders of every country. It is important to understand what forces, unrelated with international trade, affect these dynamics. This paper explores the transmission of different real shocks into market dynamics in a new-Keynesian closed economy. Results show that the source of the shock is crucial to determine the magnitude and direction of the effects on each margin.     

Optimal redistributive taxation with both extensive and intensive responses

We study optimal income taxation when labor supply reacts along the intensive and extensive margins. Individuals are heterogeneous across two unobserved dimensions: their skill and disutility of participation. We develop a new method to analytically derive conditions under which optimal marginal tax rates are non-negative everywhere. It is typically optimal to provide a distinct level of transfer to the non-employed and to workers with negligible earnings. Numerical simulations illustrate these properties for the US. We also apply our method to sign output distortions in other adverse selection frameworks with random participation, namely the monopoly nonlinear pricing and the regulatory monopoly problems.     

Dynamic gravity: endogenous country size and asset accumulation

Abstract Numerous gravity applications have resorted to panel data econometric techniques over the past decade. However, with the theory of gravity being so far only static, these estimations lack solid structural dynamic foundations. As a consequence, a consensus on a unified dynamic gravity estimation approach is yet to be reached. In this paper, (i) we build the theoretical foundations for a dynamic gravity model, (ii) we provide guidance for gravity‐type estimations with panel data and we consider applications, and (iii) we calibrate and simulate our model to compare its properties with those of the standard, static gravity setup.     

Welfare, home market effects, and horizontal foreign direct investment

Abstract.  We investigate the spatial distribution and organization of an imperfectly competitive industry when firms may choose to operate more than a single production unit. Focusing on a short-run setting with a fixed mass of firms, we first fully characterize the spatial equilibria analytically. Comparing the equilibrium and the first-best, we secondly show that both organizational and spatial inefficiencies may arise. In particular, when fixed costs are low, when transport costs are high, and when products are close substitutes, the market outcome may well have to too many multinationals operating from a social point of view ('over-investment'). As a by-product, under-agglomeration of exporters in the larger market may arise.     

Countries, regions and trade: On the welfare impacts of economic integration

We study the impact of falling international trade costs and falling national transport costs on the economic geography of countries involved in an integration process. Each country is formed by two regions between which labor is mobile, whereas there is no international mobility. Goods can be traded both nationally and internationally at positive, but different, costs. A decrease in trade costs and/or in transport costs has a direct impact on prices and wages, which allows us to account for the impact of changes in these parameters on the economic geography and welfare of each country. We show that, as trade barriers fall, the benefits of integration come after its costs. We also show that national transport policies are of the beggar-thy-neighbor type. On both counts, policy coordination is required in the process of economic integration.     

Agglomeration and fair wages

Abstract.  This paper implements a fair wage constraint into an analytically tractable core-periphery agglomeration model. This enables us to study the role of imperfect labour markets for the pattern of agglomeration. In the short run, a marginal increase in fair wage preferences leads to an unambiguous compression of the national factor price differential between skilled and unskilled labour, involving an increase in the unemployment rate of unskilled workers. In the long run, this mechanism renders full dispersion of an unstable equilibrium already at higher trade costs than in perfect labour markets. There is a tendency for fair wage preferences to enforce agglomeration.     

The Effect of Quotas on Domestic Product Price and Quality

A quota on foreign competition generally leads to quality upgrading (downgrading) of the low-quality (high-quality) firm, an increase in average quality, a reduction of quality differentiation, and a reduction of domestic consumer surplus, irrespective of whether the foreign firm produces higher or lower quality. Effects of a quota on industry profits and domestic welfare depend on the direction of international vertical differentiation. If the foreign firm produces low quality, both firms prices and profits rise but domestic welfare falls. This describes well some major effects of a Japanese Voluntary Export Restraint (VER) in the U.S. auto market and relevant empirical findings. If the foreign firm produces high quality, foreign profits will fall. Since domestic consumer surplus falls only unsubstantially, domestic profit gains lead to an increase of domestic welfare.I am grateful to Jim Gaisford, and Konrad Stahl, seminar participants at the Universität Mannheim and at the ZEW, and an anonymous referee for useful comments and suggestions. As Senior Fellow at the Center for European Integration Studies (ZEI), Bonn, I gratefully acknowledge its continued support.     

Trade policy and mixed enterprises

Abstract .  This paper demonstrates that the degree of state ownership affects neither the level of socially optimal activities nor welfare if the government chooses optimal trade policy instruments. In the case of rivalry in the home market, the optimal import tariff is independent of the degree of state ownership, and the optimal production subsidy decreases with state ownership if the optimal tariff is positive. For the case of Cournot rivalry in a third market, the optimal export subsidy increases with state ownership, while in the case of Bertrand rivalry with differentiated products, the optimal export tax increases with state ownership.     

Innovation and international trade in technology

The international market for technology is growing rapidly relative to world GDP. To study the international technology market, I present a model of innovation and international trade in which inventors auction their technology in both domestic and foreign markets. There is monopolistic competition in differentiated products. International trade in technology has number of significant economic effects. Technology trade improves the quality of innovation by increasing the pool of R&D experiments from which the best technology is chosen. Technology trade increases the efficiency of invention while at the same time lowering the total number of inventors relative to the equilibrium without technology trade. Technology trade increases the volume of trade in goods. Technology trade increases product variety at the market equilibrium. Technology trade increases national income in each country and increases total gains from trade.     

Financial factors and the margins of trade: Evidence from cross-country firm-level data

Using a large cross-country, firm-level database containing 5000 firms in 9 developing and emerging economies, we study how financial factors affect both firms' export decisions and the amount exported by firms. First, our results highlight the importance of the impact of firms' access to finance on their entry decision into the export market. However, better financial health neither increases the probability of remaining an exporter once the firm has entered, nor the size of exports. Second, we find that financial constraints create a disconnection between firms' productivity and their export status: productivity is only a significant determinant of the export decision if the firm has a sufficient access to external finance. Finally, an increase in a country's financial development dampens this disconnection, thus acting both on the number of exporters and on the exporters' selection process. These results contribute to the literature documenting the role of fixed costs and of the extensive margin of trade in total trade adjustment, and provide micro-level evidence of the positive impact of financial development on trade found by previous literature.     

On the welfare effects of trade and investment liberalization

Using a three-factor knowledge- and physical capital model of trade and multinational activity, we consider a set of policy experiments to assess the welfare effects of trade and investment liberalization in general equilibrium. Specifically, we address the question of whether and under which circumstances a single versus a combined trade/investment liberalization strategy or a unilateral versus a bilateral policy change is preferable from a single country's and the world's point of view. The focus of this paper is to look at three relevant questions. First, when is investment liberalization beneficial and when is it harmful for a single economy or the whole world? Second, is pure investment liberalization a welfare maximizing strategy? Third, when is either kind of liberalization (trade, investment, or both) welfare improving and when neither of them?     

Trade between symmetric countries,heterogeneous firms,and the skill premium

Abstract This paper examines the effects of trade liberalization between symmetric countries on the skill premium. I introduce skilled and unskilled labour in a model of trade with heterogeneous firms à la Melitz (2003) and assume a production technology such that more productive firms are more skill intensive. I show that the effects of trade liberalization on wage inequality crucially depend on the type of trade costs considered and on their initial size. While fixed costs of trade have a potentially non‐monotonic effect on the skill premium, a drop in variable trade costs unambiguously and substantially raises wage inequality.     

Redistribution,state trading enterprises and ‘politically optimal’ tariffs

State trading enterprises (STEs) are widely used and can be viewed as instruments of trade policy. We analyse two aspects: the first is their potential trade distorting effect; the second is how they modify the case for the ‘politically optimal’ tariff. We show that the STE can reduce the need for a tariff designed for domestic redistribution. This result introduces some ambiguity about how STEs are interpreted: from a multilateralist perspective, they should be dealt with in the same way as other non‐tariff barriers; from a nationalistic perspective, they can reduce the need for ‘politically optimal.’     

Foreign Direct Investment and Environmental Taxes

Abstract. This paper studies the effect of foreign direct investment (FDI) on environmental policy stringency in a two-country model with trade costs, where FDI could be unilateral and bilateral and both governments address local pollution through environmental taxes. We show that FDI does not give rise to ecological dumping because the host country has an incentive to shift rents away from the source country toward the host country. Environmental policy strategies and welfare effects are studied under the assumption that parameter values support FDI to be profitable.     

Globalization and labor market outcomes: Wage bargaining, search frictions, and firm heterogeneity

We introduce search unemployment into Melitz's trade model. Firms' monopoly power on product markets leads to strategic wage bargaining. Solving for the symmetric equilibrium we show that the selection effect of trade influences labor market outcomes. Trade liberalization lowers unemployment and raises real wages as long as it improves average productivity. We show that this condition is likely to be met by a reduction in variable trade costs or by entry of new trading countries. Calibrating the model shows that the long-run impact of trade openness on the rate of unemployment is negative and quantitatively significant.     

Skills, agglomeration and segmentation

This paper studies the role of skill heterogeneity in “new economic geography” models of location. In our setting, products are both horizontally and vertically differentiated, and producing higher quality goods requires workers with higher skills. Selling to customers based in a different location entails iceberg-type transport costs and additional “communication costs” consisting of a fixed quality loss. We show that the presence of pecuniary externalities creates a mechanism which always promotes spatial sorting of workers according to their skill levels. In particular, in all stable equilibria, workers with higher skill choose to stay in the location where aggregate skill and income is higher, while the less skilled stay in the other.     

Firms agglomeration and unions

Economic geography models predict the agglomeration of manufacturing activies only if the workforce is mobile. Still, as the E.U.'s experience shows, core-periphery patterns exist even though the workforce is rather immobile. The paper provides a theoretical explanation for such core-periphery patterns through the effect that unions have on firms’ incentive to agglomerate in a region. The paper offers fully analytical results about location equilibria and some interesting welfare properties.