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1,911
Increasing Returns and Economic Geography
- Journal of Political Economy
, 1991
"... This paper develops a simple model that shows how a country can endogenously become differentiated into an industrialized "core" and an agricultural "periphery. " In order to realize scale economies while minimizing transport costs, manufacturing firms tend to locate in the regio ..."
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Cited by 1811 (7 self)
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This paper develops a simple model that shows how a country can endogenously become differentiated into an industrialized "core" and an agricultural "periphery. " In order to realize scale economies while minimizing transport costs, manufacturing firms tend to locate in the region with larger demand, but the location of demand itself depends on the distribution of manufacturing. Emergence of a core-periphery pattern depends on transportation costs, economies of scale, and the share of manufacturing in national income. The study of economic geography-of the location of factors of production in space-occupies a relatively small part of standard economic analysis. International trade theory, in particular, conventionally treats nations as dimensionless points (and frequently assumes zero transportation costs between countries as well). Admittedly, models descended from von Thunen (1826) play an important role in urban studies, while Hotelling-type models of locational competition get a reasonable degree of attention in industrial organization. On the whole, however, it seems fair to say that the study of economic geography plays at best a marginal role in economic theory. On the face of it, this neglect is surprising. The facts of economic geography are surely among the most striking features of real-world economies, at least to laymen. For example, one of the most remarkable things about the United States is that in a generally sparsely populated country, much of whose land is fertile, the bulk of the population resides in a few clusters of metropolitan areas; a quarter of the inhabitants are crowded into a not especially inviting section of the East Coast. It has often been noted that nighttime satellite
The impact of trade on Intra-Industry reallocations and aggregate industry productivity.
- Econometrica,
, 2003
"... This paper develops a dynamic industry model with heterogeneous firms to analyze the intra-industry effects of international trade. The model shows how the exposure to trade will induce only the more productive firms to enter the export market (while some less productive firms continue to produce o ..."
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Cited by 1584 (22 self)
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This paper develops a dynamic industry model with heterogeneous firms to analyze the intra-industry effects of international trade. The model shows how the exposure to trade will induce only the more productive firms to enter the export market (while some less productive firms continue to produce only for the domestic market) and will simultaneously force the least productive firms to exit. It then shows how further increases in the industry's exposure to trade lead to additional inter-firm reallocations towards more productive firms. The paper also shows how the aggregate industry productivity growth generated by the reallocations contributes to a welfare gain, thus highlighting a benefit from trade that has not been examined theoretically before. The paper adapts Hopenhayn's (1992a) dynamic industry model to monopolistic competition in a general equilibrium setting. In so doing, the paper provides an extension of
Can Sticky Price Models Generate Volatile and Persistent Real Exchange Rates?
, 2000
"... The central puzzle in international business cycles is that real exchange rates are volatile and persistent. The most popular story for real exchange rate fluctuations is that they are generated by monetary shocks interacting with sticky goods prices. We quantify this story and find that it can acco ..."
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Cited by 343 (6 self)
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The central puzzle in international business cycles is that real exchange rates are volatile and persistent. The most popular story for real exchange rate fluctuations is that they are generated by monetary shocks interacting with sticky goods prices. We quantify this story and find that it can account for some of the observed properties of real exchange rates. When prices are held fixed for at least one year, risk aversion is high and preferences are separable in leisure, the model generates real exchange rates that are as volatile as in the data. The model also generates real exchange rates that are persistent, but less so than in the data. If monetary shocks are correlated across countries, then the comovements in aggregates across countries are broadly consistent with those in the data. Making asset markets incomplete or introducing sticky wages does not measurably change the results.
Product Selection, Fixed Costs, and Monopolistic Competition
- REVIEW OF ECONOMIC STUDIES
, 1976
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Micro-foundations of urban agglomeration economies
- In Vernon Henderson and Jacques-François Thisse (eds.) Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics
, 2004
"... Abstract: This handbook chapter studies the theoretical microfoundations of urban agglomeration economies. We distinguish three types of micro-foundations, based on sharing, matching, and learning mechanisms. For each of these three categories, we develop one or more core models in detail and discus ..."
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Cited by 318 (32 self)
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Abstract: This handbook chapter studies the theoretical microfoundations of urban agglomeration economies. We distinguish three types of micro-foundations, based on sharing, matching, and learning mechanisms. For each of these three categories, we develop one or more core models in detail and discuss the literature in relation to those models. This allows us to give a precise characterisation of some of the main theoretical underpinnings of urban agglomeration economies, to discuss modelling issues that arise when working with these tools, and to compare different sources of agglomeration economies in terms of the aggregate urban outcomes they produce as well as in terms of their normative implications. Key words: cities, agglomeration, increasing returns, micro-foundations jel classification: r12, r13, r32 ∗ This is a working draft of a chapter written for eventual publication in the Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, Volume 4, edited by J. Vernon Henderson and Jacques-François Thisse, to be published by North-Holland. We are grateful to the editors, Masa Fujita, Mike Peters, and the participants at the the 2002 narsa meetings for comments and suggestions.
Plants and productivity in international trade
- The American Economic Review
, 2003
"... We reconcile trade theory with plant-level export behavior, extending the Ricardian model to accommodate many countries, geographic barriers, and imperfect com-petition. Our model captures qualitatively basic facts about U.S. plants: (i) pro-ductivity dispersion, (ii) higher productivity among expor ..."
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Cited by 267 (3 self)
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We reconcile trade theory with plant-level export behavior, extending the Ricardian model to accommodate many countries, geographic barriers, and imperfect com-petition. Our model captures qualitatively basic facts about U.S. plants: (i) pro-ductivity dispersion, (ii) higher productivity among exporters, (iii) the small fraction who export, (iv) the small fraction earned from exports among exporting plants, and (v) the size advantage of exporters. Fitting the model to bilateral trade among the United States and 46 major trade partners, we examine the impact of globalization and dollar appreciation on productivity, plant entry and exit, and labor turnover in U.S. manufacturing. (JEL F11, F17, O33) A new empirical literature has emerged that examines international trade at the level of in-dividual producers. Bernard and Jensen (1995, 1999a), Sofronis Clerides et al. (1998), and Bee Yan Aw et al. (2000), among others, have un-covered stylized facts about the behavior and
Increasing Returns Versus National Product Differentiation as an Explanation for the Pattern of US-Canada Trade
- THE AMERICAN ECONOMIC REVIEW
, 2001
"... We evaluate two alternative models of international trade in differentiated products. ..."
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Cited by 242 (7 self)
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We evaluate two alternative models of international trade in differentiated products.