Structural Estimation and Solution of International Trade Models with Heterogeneous Firms PDF Download

Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0

View

Book Description

Author: Na Yang
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : International trade
Languages : en
Pages : 246

View

Book Description

Author: Jonathan Eaton
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 0

View

Book Description
A recent literature has introduced heterogeneous firms into models of international trade. This literature has adopted the convention of treating individual firms as points on a continuum. While the continuum offers many advantages this convenience comes at some cost: (1) Shocks to individual firms can never have an aggregate effect. (2) It is hard to reconcile the small (sometimes zero) number of firms engaged in selling from one country to another with a continuum. (3) For such models to deliver finite solutions for aggregates, such as the price index, requires restrictions on parameter values that may not hold in the data. We show how a standard heterogeneous-firm trade model can be amended to allow for only an integer number of firms. The model overcomes the deficiencies of the continuum model enumerated above. Taking the model to aggregate data on bilateral trade in manufactures among 92 countries and to firm-level export data for a much narrower sample shows that it accounts for both the large share of a small number of firms in sales around the world and for zeros in bilateral trade data while maintaining the good fit of the standard gravity equation among country pairs with thick trade volumes. Randomness at the firm level adds substantially to aggregate variability.

Author: Alessandra Bonfiglioli
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Business enterprises
Languages : en
Pages : 28

View

Book Description
International trade is dominated by a small number of very large firms. Models of trade with heterogeneous firms have been developed to study the causes and consequences of this observation. The canonical model of trade with heterogeneous firms shows that trade leads to between-firm reallocations and selection: it shifts employment towards firms with the best attributes and forces marginal firms to exit. The model also illustrates the role of heterogeneity, and its various sources, in explaining the volume of trade and the firm-level margins of adjustment. Consistent with the model, earlier empirical studies have documented that exporting is a rare activity, that exporting firms are larger and more productive than other firms, and that trade liberalization reallocates market shares towards the best-performing firms in various countries. More recent studies using transaction-level data have unveiled additional salient features of trade flows. First, sales by foreign firms are very heterogeneous and highly concentrated. Second, both the extensive margin (number of exporting firms) and the intensive margin (average export per firm) are important in explaining the level of exports and its changes over time. More heterogeneity in sales across firms is associated with a higher volume of trade along both margins. Third, increased foreign competition reallocates market shares towards top firms and hence can increase concentration from any country of origin. Numerous extensions of the benchmark model have been proposed to study other important aspects, such as the relevance of multi-product and multinational firms and the extent to which heterogeneity is endogenous to firms' choices, but some open challenges still remain.

Author: Peter B. Dixon
Publisher: Newnes
ISBN: 044462631X
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 1886

View

Book Description
Top scholars synthesize and analyze scholarship on this widely used tool of policy analysis in 27 articles, setting forth its accomplishments, difficulties, and means of implementation. Though CGE modeling does not play a prominent role in top U.S. graduate schools, it is employed universally in the development of economic policy. This collection is particularly important because it presents a history of modeling applications and examines competing points of view. Presents coherent summaries of CGE theories that inform major model types Covers the construction of CGE databases, model solving, and computer-assisted interpretation of results Shows how CGE modeling has made a contribution to economic policy

Author: Ana Fernandes
Publisher: International Monetary Fund
ISBN: 1484386175
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 66

View

Book Description
The Melitz model highlights the importance of the extensive margin (the number of firms exporting) for trade flows. Using the World Bank’s Exporter Dynamics Database (EDD) featuring firm-level exports from 50 countries, we find that around 50 percent of variation in exports is along the extensive margin—a quantitative victory for the Melitz framework. The remaining 50 percent on the intensive margin (exports per exporting firm) contradicts a special case of Melitz with Pareto-distributed firm productivity, which has become a tractable benchmark. This benchmark model predicts that, conditional on the fixed costs of exporting, all variation in exports across trading partners should occur on the extensive margin. We find that moving from a Pareto to a lognormal distribution allows the Melitz model to match the role of the intensive margin in the EDD. We use likelihood methods and the EDD to estimate a generalized Melitz model with a joint lognormal distribution for firm-level productivity, fixed costs and demand shifters, and use “exact hat algebra” to quantify the effects of a decline in trade costs on trade flows and welfare in the estimated model. The welfare effects turn out to be quite close to those in the standard Melitz-Pareto model when we choose the Pareto shape parameter to fit the average trade elasticity implied by our estimated Melitz-lognormal model, although there are significant differences regarding the effects on trade flows.

Author: Shu-Heng Chen
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199844372
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 785

View

Book Description
The Oxford Handbook of Computational Economics and Finance provides a survey of both the foundations of and recent advances in the frontiers of analysis and action. It is both historically and interdisciplinarily rich and also tightly connected to the rise of digital society. It begins with the conventional view of computational economics, including recent algorithmic development in computing rational expectations, volatility, and general equilibrium. It then moves from traditional computing in economics and finance to recent developments in natural computing, including applications of nature-inspired intelligence, genetic programming, swarm intelligence, and fuzzy logic. Also examined are recent developments of network and agent-based computing in economics. How these approaches are applied is examined in chapters on such subjects as trading robots and automated markets. The last part deals with the epistemology of simulation in its trinity form with the integration of simulation, computation, and dynamics. Distinctive is the focus on natural computationalism and the examination of the implications of intelligent machines for the future of computational economics and finance. Not merely individual robots, but whole integrated systems are extending their "immigration" to the world of Homo sapiens, or symbiogenesis.

Author: Peter B. Dixon
Publisher: Newnes
ISBN: 0444536353
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 1143

View

Book Description
In this collection of 17 articles, top scholars synthesize and analyze scholarship on this widely used tool of policy analysis, setting forth its accomplishments, difficulties, and means of implementation. Though CGE modeling does not play a prominent role in top US graduate schools, it is employed universally in the development of economic policy. This collection is particularly important because it presents a history of modeling applications and examines competing points of view. Presents coherent summaries of CGE theories that inform major model types Covers the construction of CGE databases, model solving, and computer-assisted interpretation of results Shows how CGE modeling has made a contribution to economic policy

Author: Gita Gopinath
Publisher: Elsevier
ISBN: 0444543155
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 773

View

Book Description
What conclusions can be drawn from recent advances in international trade and international macroeconomics? New datasets, theoretical models, and empirical studies have resulted in fresh questions about the world trade and payment system. These chapters--six on trade and six on international macroeconomics--reveal the richness that researchers have uncovered in recent years. The chapters on foreign trade present, among other subjects, new integrated multisector analytical frameworks, the use of gravity equations for the estimation of trade flows, the role of domestic institutions in shaping comparative advantage, and international trade agreements. On international macroeconomics, chapters explore the relation between exchange rates and other macroeconomic variables; risk sharing, allocation of capital across countries, and current account dynamics; and sovereign debt and financial crises. By addressing new issues while enabling deeper and sharper analyses of old issues, this volume makes a significant contribution to our understanding of the global economy. Systematically illuminates and interprets recent developments in research on international trade and international macroeconomics Focuses on newly developing questions and opportunities for future research Presents multiple perspectives on ways to understand the global economy

Author: John Spray
Publisher: International Monetary Fund
ISBN: 151357261X
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 80

View

Book Description
I develop a model of firm-to-firm search and matching to show that the impact of falling trade costs on firm sourcing decisions and consumer welfare depends on the relative size of search externalities in domestic and international markets. These externalities can be positive if firms share information about potential matches, or negative if the market is congested. Using unique firm-to-firm transaction-level data from Uganda, I document empirical evidence consistent with positive externalities in international markets and negative externalities in domestic markets. I then build a dynamic quantitative version of the model and show that, in Uganda, a 25% reduction in trade costs led to a 3.7% increase in consumer welfare, 12% of which was due to search externalities.