Trade intermediaries, incomplete contracts, and the choice of export modes

The business literature suggests that exporters either use trade intermediaries or own foreign sales representations. Standard trade models are silent about this choice. We develop a model where producers differ with respect to competitive advantage and where trade intermediaries arise endogenously. Intermediaries allow producers to access a foreign market at lower fixed costs, but the lack of enforceable cross-country contracts reduces variable revenue. Producers select into different export modes along their characteristics. Relative prevalence of trade intermediation is stronger the bigger the risk of expropriation in the foreign country and the lower the severity of contractual frictions, the degree of heterogeneity amongst producers, and the elasticity of substitution between varieties. The volume of bilateral trade and the stock of FDI appear as complements in the model. Tentative empirical evidence confirms the main predictions. --International trade,trade intermediation,heterogeneous firms,incomplete contracts

Home Market Effects and the Single-Sector Melitz Model

Increasing-returns-to-scale imperfect competition trade models predict a more than proportionate relationship between the larger country’s share in world endowments and its share in producing firms: the so called home market effect (HME). While this result plays a key role in empirical testing, its theoretical foundation typically posits a linear, friction-free and perfectly competitive outside sector. Replacing this assumption with firm heterogeneity and Melitz (2003) type selection-into-exporting, we demonstrate the existence of a weak and a strong HME. The HMEs are generally non-linear; they are magnified by lower trade costs or more pronounced productivity dispersion. The weak version of the HME continues to hold for general sampling distributions and if the conventional sorting condition fails. In terms of demand shares, a HME holds if demand shocks are due to endowment shocks but reverses in the case of productivity shocks. Finally and in contrast to the model with an outside sector, trade liberalization leads to convergence of real per capita income.home market effect, monopolistic competition, heterogeneous firms, economic geography

Trade intermediation and the organization of exporters

The business literature and recent descriptive evidence show that exporting firms typically require the help of foreign trade intermediaries or need to set up own foreign wholesale affiliates. In contrast, conventional trade theory models assume that producers can directly access foreign consumers. This paper introduces intermediaries in an international trade model where producers differ with respect to productivity as well as regarding their varieties' perceived quality and tradability. We assume that trade intermediation is prone to frictions due to the absence of enforceable cross-country contracts while own wholesale subsidiaries require capital investment. We derive the sorting pattern of firms according to their degree of competitive advantage and show how the relative prevalence of intermediation depends on the degree of heterogeneity among producers, on the importance of market-specificity of goods, or on expropriation risk. We use US export data for 50 sectors and 133 destination countries to check the empirical validity of this predictions and find robust empirical support. --Trade intermediation,international trade, heterogeneous firms,incomplete contracts

Trade Intermediation and the Organization of Exporters

The business literature shows that exporting firms typically require the help of foreign trade intermediaries or need to set up own foreign wholesale affiliates. In contrast, conventional trade theory models assume that producers can directly access foreign consumers. This paper models the endogenous emergence of intermediaries in an international trade model where producers differ with respect to productivity as well as regarding their varieties' perceived quality and tradability. We assume that trade intermediation is prone to frictions due to the absence of enorceable cross-country contracts while own wholesale subsidiaries require capital investment. We derive the sorting pattern of firms according to their degree of competitive advantage and show how the relative prevalence of intermediation depends on the degree of heterogeneity among producers, on the importance of market-specificity of goods, or on expropriation risk. We use US export data for 50 sectors and 133 destination countries to check the empirical validity of this predictions and find robust empirical support. JEL classifcation: F12, F23Trade intermediation, international trade, heterogeneous rms, incomplete contracts.

Sorting It Out: Technical Barriers to Trade and Industry Productivity

Trade economists traditionally study the effect of lower variable trade costs. While increasingly important politically, technical barriers to trade (TBTs) have received less attention. Viewing TBTs as fixed regulatory costs related to the entry into export markets, we use a model with heterogeneous firms, trade in differentiated goods, and variable external economies of scale to sort out the rich interactions between TBT reform, input diversity, firm-level productivity, and aggregate productivity. We calibrate the model for 14 industries in order to clarify the theoretical ambiguities. Overall, our results tend to suggest beneficial effects of TBT reform but also reveal interesting sectoral variation.Heterogenous Firms, Single European Market, International Trade, Technical Barriers to Trade, Regulatory Costs

Optimal Tariffs, Retaliation and the Welfare Loss from Tariff Wars in the Melitz Model

This paper characterizes analytically the optimal tariff of a large one-sector economy with monopolistic competition and firm heterogeneity in general equilibrium, thereby extending the small-country results of Demidova and Rodriguez-Clare (JIE, 2009) and the homogeneous firms framework of Gros (JIE, 1987). The optimal tariff internalizes a markup distortion and a terms of trade externality. It is larger the higher the dispersion of firm-level productivities, and the bigger the country's relative size or relative average productivity. Furthermore, in the two-country Nash equilibrium, tariffs turn out to be strategic substitutes. Small or poor economies set lower Nash tariffs than large or rich ones. Lower transportation costs or smaller fixed market entry costs induce higher equilibrium tariffs and larger welfare losses relative to the case of zero tariffs. Similarly, cross-country productivity or size convergence increases the global welfare loss due to non-cooperative tariff policies. These results suggest that post WWII trends have increased the relative merits of the WTO.optimal tariffs, retaliation, tariff wars, heterogeneous firms, World Trade Organization, Nash equilibrium

Ethnic Networks, Information, and International Trade: Revisiting the Evidence

Influential empirical work by Rauch and Trindade (REStat, 2002) finds that Chinese ethnic networks of the magnitude observed in Southeast Asia increase bilateral trade by at least 60%. We argue that this estimate is upward biased due to omitted variable bias. Moreover, it is partly related to a preference effect rather than to enforcement and/or the availability of information. Applying a theory-based gravity model to ethnicity data for 1980 and 1990, and focusing on pure network effects, we find that the Chinese network leads to a more modest amount of trade creation of about 15%. Using new data on bilateral stocks of migrants from the World Bank for the year of 2000, we extend the analysis to all potential ethnic networks. We find, i.a., evidence for a Polish, a Turkish, a Mexican, or an Indian network. While confirming the existence of a Chinese network, its trade creating potential is dwarfed by other ethnic networks.Gravity model, international trade,network effects, international migration. regression

Market Size Effects in New New Trade Theory

Increasing-returns-to-scale imperfect competition trade models predict a more than proportionate relationship between the larger country s share in world endowments and its share in producing firms: the so called home market effect (HME). We show that the single-sector Melitz (2003) model features a weak and a strong HME, even in the absence of a second sector. The HMEs are generally non-linear; they are magnified by lower trade costs or by more pronounced productivity dispersion. The model implies that market size differences translate into regional inequality. In contrast to the traditional formulation with a linear outside sector, trade liberalization leads to convergence of real per capita income. In terms of demand shares, a HME holds if demand shocks are due to endowment shocks but reverses in the case of productivity shocks