American Economic Journal:
Macroeconomics
ISSN 1945-7707 (Print) | ISSN 1945-7715 (Online)
Grounded by Gravity: A Well-Behaved Trade Model with Industry-Level Economies of Scale
American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics
vol. 15,
no. 2, April 2023
(pp. 372–412)
Abstract
We propose a model to study the role of industry-level external economies of scale in open economies. If the elasticity governing the strength of external economies is below the inverse of the trade elasticity in each industry, then specialization under frictionless trade is consistent with comparative advantage, the model is tractable even with trade frictions, and all countries gain from trade. External economies lower gains from trade except if the country specializes in industries with high scale economies, and they amplify the gains from further trade liberalization except if it leads to specialization in industries with low scale economies.Citation
Kucheryavyy, Konstantin, Gary Lyn, and Andrés Rodríguez-Clare. 2023. "Grounded by Gravity: A Well-Behaved Trade Model with Industry-Level Economies of Scale." American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, 15 (2): 372–412. DOI: 10.1257/mac.20190156Additional Materials
JEL Classification
- D24 Production; Cost; Capital; Capital, Total Factor, and Multifactor Productivity; Capacity
- F11 Neoclassical Models of Trade
- F12 Models of Trade with Imperfect Competition and Scale Economies; Fragmentation
- F13 Trade Policy; International Trade Organizations
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