Can We Trust Private Firms as Suppliers of Vaccine for the Avian Influenza?

Using a simple monopoly model, this note analyses the incentives of a vaccine producer. Because a vaccine tends to eradicate the disease for wich it is intended, it also tends to destroy its own market. This means that monopolistic producers may be tempted, in a socially non-optimal way, to delay the introduction of vaccines against new infections until the disease has spread.Vaccines

Firm Heterogeneity and Country Size Dependent Market Entry Costs

This paper introduces a market size dependent firm entry cost into the Helpman, Melitz and Yeaple (2004) (HMY) version of the Melitz (2003) model. This is a relatively small generalisation, which preserves the analytical solvability of the model. Nevertheless, our model yields several new results that are in line with data. First, the average productivity of firms located in a market increases in the size of the market. Second, the productivity of exporters is U-shaped with reference to export market size. Third, the productivity premium (the difference in average productivity) between exporters and non-exporters decreases in the home country size. Fourth, we derive a set of new results related to trade volume. It is shown that when the fixed entry cost of exporting declines, for instance as the result of economic integration, export shares converge. This prognosis is supported by the empirical section of the paper. Fifth, we use a multicountry version of our model to derive a gravity equation. Our specification yields a gravity equation a la Anderson and van Wincoop (2003), but where GDP per capita enters as an additional explanatory variable.heterogenous firms, market size, market entry costs

On the Development Strategy of Countries of Intermediate size - An Analysis of Heterogenous Fims in a Multiregion Framework

This paper compares two policies: trade cost reduction and firm relocation cost reduction using a three-country version of a heterogeneous-firms economic geography model, where the three countries have different market (population) size. We show how the effects of the two policies differ, in particular, for the country of intermediate size. Unless the intermediate country is very small, it will gain industry when relocation costs are reduced, but lose industry when trade costs are reduced. The smallest country loses industry in both cases, but only experiences lower welfare in the case of lower relocation costs. Thus, the ranking of the policies from the point of view of the two small and intermediate countries tends to be the opposite.Agglomeration; firm heterogeneity; multi-country model; trade liberalisation; relocation costs

Spatial Relocation with Heterogeneous Firms and Heterogeneous Sectors

The present paper focuses on sorting as a mechanism behind the well-established fact that there is a central region productivity premium. Using a model of heterogeneous firms that can move between regions, Baldwin and Okubo (2006) show how more productive firms sort themselves to the large core region. We extend this model by introducing different capital intensities among firms and sectors. In accordance with empirical evidence, more productive firms are assumed to be more capital intensive. As a result, our model can produce sorting to the large regions from both ends of the productivity distribution. Firms with high capital intensity and high productivity as well as firms with very low productivity and low capital intensity tend to relocate to the core. We use region and sector productivity distributions from Japanese micro data to test the predictions of the model. Several sectors show patterns consistent with two-sided sorting, and roughly an equal number of sectors seem to primarily be driven by sorting and selection. We also find supportive evidence for our model prediction that two-sided sorting occurs in sectors with a high capital intensity.Agglomeration; firm heterogeneity; productivity; spatial sorting

Tax Competition and Economic Geography

Tax competition between two countries is considered in a trade- and-location setting with differentiated products and monopolistic competition. There are two groups of workers, mobile ones and immobile ones. Taxes are used for producing a public good. It is shown that an equilibrium with mobile workers dispersed across countries is destabilised by increased taxes on these mobile workers|and this is shown to be true also for perfectly coordinated tax increases. It is also shown that an agglomeration is taxable, and that increasing public spending may relax the minimum tax pressure on immobile workers consistent with preserv-ing an agglomeration.JEL Classi¯cation: F12; F15; F21; R12 agglomeration; economic geography; tax competition

Firm Heterogeneity and Country Size Dependent Market Entry Cost

This paper introduces a market size dependent firm entry cost into the Melitz (2003) model. This is a relatively small generalisation, which preserves the analytical solvability of the model. Nevertheless, our model yields several new results that are in line with data. First, the average productivity of firms located in a market increases in the size of the market. Second, the productivity of exporters is U-shaped with reference to export market size. Third, the productivity premium (the difference in average productivity) between exporters and non-exporters decreases in the home country size. Fourth, we derive a set of new results related to trade volume. It is shown that when the fixed entry cost of exporting declines, for instance as the result of economic integration, export shares converge. This prognosis is supported by the empirical section of the paper. Fifth, we use a multicountry version of our model to derive a gravity equation. Our specification yields a gravity equation à la Anderson and van Wincoop (2003), but where GDP per capita enters as an additional explanatory variable.Heterogenous Firms; Market Size; Beachhead Costs

Trade Liberalization with Heterogenous Firms

This paper examines the impact of trade liberalization with heterogeneous firms using the Melitz (2003) model. We find a number of novel results and effects including a Stolper-Samuelson like result and several results related to the volume of trade, which are empirically testable. We also find what might be called an anti-variety effect as the result of trade liberalization. This resonates with the often voiced criticism from antiglobalists that globalization leads the world to become more homogenous by eliminating local specialities. Nevertheless, we find that trade liberalization always leads to welfare gains in the model.