Product Market Integration and Heterogeneity—Rent Sharing and Pricing to Market

International product market integration makes market penetration easier and therefore creates both export opportunities and import threats. This changes the competitive position of firms and is associated with changes in trade, production, and specialization structures. The gains and losses in this process are unlikely to be equally shared due to heterogeneity across firms/sectors. In a Ricardian trade model with heterogeneity across firms, we find “pricing to market”—effects not only for exports, but also for pricing in the domestic market even for nontradables. Rents to be shared in wage bargaining differ across tradables and nontradables. It is shown that lower trade frictions affect the scope for “pricing to market” and cause wages to become more closely driven by (relative) productivity. Labor market prospects tend not to improve for low wage jobs, and not to deteriorate for high wage jobs.