Trade volume and country size in the Heckscher-Ohlin model

This paper develops a model of international trade based on differences in factor endowments across countries. We use this model to show that in such an environment, holding relative endowments and the size of the world economy constant, the volume of trade increases as countries become more similar to each other in terms of their relative sizes.

Zipfs Law for Cities: A Cross Country Investigation

This paper assesses the empirical validity of Zipf¿s Law for cities, using new data on 73countries and two estimation methods ¿ OLS and the Hill estimator. With either estimator,we reject Zipf¿s Law far more often than we would expect based on random chance; for 53out of 73 countries using OLS, and for 30 out of 73 countries using the Hill estimator. TheOLS estimates of the Pareto exponent are roughly normally distributed, but those of the Hillestimator are bimodal. Variations in the value of the Pareto exponent are better explained bypolitical economy variables than by economic geography variables.Cities, Zipf¿s Law, Pareto distribution, Hill estimator

Product durability and trade volatility

One of the main causes behind the trade collapse of 2008–09 was a significant fall in the demand for durable goods. This paper develops a small country, overlapping generations model of international trade in which goods durability gives rise to a more than proportional fall in trade volumes, as observed in 2008–09. The model has three goods—two durable, traded goods and one nondurable, nontraded good and two factors of production. The durability of goods affects consumers' lifetime wealth and their optimal consumption bundle across goods and time periods. A uniform productivity shock reduces consumers' lifetime wealth inducing a re-optimisation away from durables. This gives rise to a more than proportional effect on international trade, provided the nontraded sector is sufficiently capital intensive. The elasticity of trade flows to GDP is found to be increasing in both the degree of durability and the size of the shock.> ; Thus the model provides microfoundations for the asymmetric shock to the demand for durable goods observed in recessions and clarifies the link between this endogenous shift in preferences and international trade flows. It also explains the observation that deeper downturns are associated with a higher elasticity of trade to GDP. Furthermore, the greater the degree of durability of traded goods, the larger is the share of domestically produced goods in consumption, for plausible factor intensities. This provides an alternative explanation for the home bias in consumption, and hence another explanation for Trefler’s "missing trade."International trade

Product Durability and Trade Volatility

One of the main causes behind the trade collapse of 2008-09 was a significant fall in the demand for durable goods. This paper develops a small country, overlapping generations model of international trade in which goods durability gives rise to a more than proportional fall in trade volumes, as observed in 2008-09. The model has three goods - two durable, traded goods and one non-durable, non-traded good and two factors of production. The durability of goods affects consumers’ lifetime wealth and their optimal consumption bundle across goods and time periods. A uniform productivity shock reduces consumers’ lifetime wealth inducing a re-optimisation away from durables. This gives rise to a more than proportional effect on international trade, provided the non-traded sector is sufficiently capital intensive. The elasticity of trade flows to GDP is found to be increasing in both the degree of durability and the size of the shock. Thus the model provides micro-foundations for the asymmetric shock to the demand for durable goods observed in recessions and clarifies the link between this endogenous shift in preferences and international trade flows. It also explains the observation that deeper downturns are associated with a higher elasticity of trade to GDP. Furthermore, the greater the degree of durability of traded goods, the larger is the share of domestically produced goods in consumption, for plausible factor intensities. This provides an alternative explanation for the home bias in consumption, and hence another explanation for Trefler's "missing trade ".Trade in durable goods; 2008 trade collapse economic growth

Some university students are more equal than others: Efficiency evidence from England

This paper estimates the efficiency of students in English universities using Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) and a new dataset which is able to capture the behaviour of university students. Two output variables are specified: the classification of a university degree, and student satisfaction. Three input variables are specified: teaching hours, private study and entry qualifications. The results reveal that university students differ in terms of the efficiency with which they use inputs in generating good degrees and satisfaction. Students in some post-92 universities may be more efficient than students in some pre-92 universities.Data Envelopment Analysis; Efficiency; Education Economics; Universities.

International trade and the division of labour

This paper develops a model of international trade based on the division of labour under perfect competition. International trade, by eliminating the duplication of coordination costs, leads to a greater variety of intermediate goods, each produced at a larger scale than in autarky. The greater variety of intermediate inputs implies greater division of labour and hence gains from trade. Similarly to models of international trade under imperfect competition, the volume of trade depends on the relative sizes of the trading partners. Extending the model to two factors of production yields the additional result that if the two countries are sufficiently similar in their relative endowments, then both factors of production can experience gains from trade

The gains from trade in intermediate goods:a Ricardo-Sraffa-Samuelson model

This paper develops a model of intermediate and final goods trade based on comparative advantage. Firms endogenously decide whether to produce a final good directly using labour, or indirectly using both labour and intermediate inputs. It is shown that the gains from trade in intermediate and final goods exceeds that from trade in final goods alone. Allowing for decreasing trade and coordination costs results in an endogenous change in the structure of production towards a more fragmented structure, with corresponding implications for trade patterns

Are hamburgers harmless?:the Big Mac Index in the twenty-first century

We make use of The Economist’s Big Mac Index (BMI) to investigate the Law of One Price (LOP) and whether the BMI can be used to predict future exchange rate and price changes. Deviations from Big Mac parity decay quickly, in approximately 1 year. The BMI is a better predictor of relative price changes than of exchange rate changes, and performs best when predicting a depreciation of a currency relative to the US dollar. Convergence to Big Mac parity occurs more rapidly for currencies with some form of exchange rate control than for freely floating exchange rates, which is the opposite of what we obtain using the aggregate CPI

Indivisibilities in the Ricardian model of trade

This paper develops a Ricardian model of trade in which there are indivisibilities in both production and consumption. Indivisibilities give rise to new results compared to the standard model with perfectly divisible production and consumption. Production indivisibility may result in complete specialisation even in autarky, while consumption indivisibility may result in consumption heterogeneity even amongst ex ante identical consumers. Indivisibilities lead to efficiency losses relative to the perfectly divisible case

Country size and trade in intermediate goods

This paper documents a negative relationship between country size and the share of consumption goods in total exports. A model is developed, based on the division of labour and comparative advantage, to explain this relationship. Labour is used to produce traded intermediate inputs which are used in the production of traded final goods. Large countries gain relatively more from comparative advantage than from the division of labour, while the opposite is true for small countries. As in the data, large countries export a smaller share of final goods and a larger share of intermediate goods than small countries