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Technology, Market Structure and the Gains from Trade

Author

Listed:
  • Giammario Impullitti
  • Omar Licandro
  • Pontus Rendahl
Abstract
We study the gains from trade in an economy with oligopolistic competition, firm heterogeneity, and innovation. Oligopolistic competition together with free entry make markups responsive to firm productivity and trade costs. Lowering trade costs reduces markups on domestic sales but increases markups on export sales, as firms do not pass the entire reduction in trade costs onto foreign consumers. Nevertheless, the downward pressure dominates and the average markup declines, deterring firms from entering the market and leading to higher market concentration. Neither the increased concentration nor the incomplete pass-through of trade costs to export markups are strong enough to compensate for the increase in competition on domestic sales. Thus the overall effect of trade on markups is pro-competitive and a key source of the associated welfare gains. In addition to markups, selection and innovation provide additional channels through which the trade-induced effect on competition impacts welfare. In a quantitative exercise, we decompose the total gains from trade into these three contributing channels; we find that innovation plays a small but non-negligible role, while the main component is equally split between the pro-competitive and the selection channel.

Suggested Citation

  • Giammario Impullitti & Omar Licandro & Pontus Rendahl, 2017. "Technology, Market Structure and the Gains from Trade," CESifo Working Paper Series 6727, CESifo.
    • Handle: RePEc:ces:ceswps:_6727
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    Cited by:

    1. Impullitti, Giammario & Licandro, Omar & Rendahl, Pontus, 2022. "Technology, market structure and the gains from trade," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 135(C).
    2. Laurent Cavenaile & Pau Roldan-Blanco & Tom Schmitz, 2023. "International Trade and Innovation Dynamics with Endogenous Markups," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 133(651), pages 971-1004.
    3. Matias Covarrubias & Germán Gutiérrez & Thomas Philippon, 2019. "From Good to Bad Concentration? US Industries over the Past 30 Years," NBER Chapters, in: NBER Macroeconomics Annual 2019, volume 34, pages 1-46, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Kazuhiro Takauchi & Tomomichi Mizuno & Katsufumi Fukuda, 2024. "Strategic Export Decisions in International Trade," Discussion Paper Series DP2024-21, Research Institute for Economics & Business Administration, Kobe University.
    5. Yu, Zhuangxiong & Cheng, Jiajia & Mukhopadhaya, Pundarik & Dong, Jiemiao, 2023. "Do information spillovers across products aggravate product market monopoly? An examination with Chinese data," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 125(C).
    6. Tchoffo, Rodrigue & Ngouhouo, Ibrahim & Nkemgha, Guivis, 2020. "Trade Liberalization and Macroeconomic Performance in Cameroon: An Imperfect Competition Approach," MPRA Paper 98558, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 09 Feb 2020.
    7. Gutiérrez, Germán & Jones, Callum & Philippon, Thomas, 2021. "Entry costs and aggregate dynamics," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 124(S), pages 77-91.
    8. Kenji Fujiwara, 2024. "Firm heterogeneity in competition among the big and the small," Bulletin of Economic Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 76(1), pages 147-166, January.
    9. Giammario Impullitti & Richard Kneller & Danny McGowan, 2020. "Demand‐Driven Technical Change and Productivity Growth: Theory and Evidence FROM the Energy Policy Act," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 68(2), pages 328-363, June.
    10. Germán Gutiérrez & Callum Jones & Thomas Philippon, 2019. "Entry Costs and the Macroeconomy," NBER Working Papers 25609, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    11. Kyung In Hwang, 2022. "The pro‐competitive effects of foreign firm entry: Evidence from the Korean retail sector," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 45(5), pages 1587-1613, May.
    12. Bingxue Wang, 2024. "Towards a welfare model of trade and multinational firms with oligopolistic competition," International Journal of Economic Theory, The International Society for Economic Theory, vol. 20(1), pages 120-155, March.
    13. Impullitti, Giammario, 2022. "Credit constraints, selection and productivity growth," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 111(C).
    14. Luca Macedoni & Vladimir Tyazhelnikov, 2024. "Oligopoly and oligopsony in international trade," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 57(2), pages 401-429, May.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    gains from trade; heterogeneous firms; oligopoly; innovation; endogenous markups; endogenous market structure;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • F12 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Models of Trade with Imperfect Competition and Scale Economies; Fragmentation
    • F13 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Trade Policy; International Trade Organizations
    • O31 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Innovation and Invention: Processes and Incentives
    • O41 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Growth and Aggregate Productivity - - - One, Two, and Multisector Growth Models

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