Differentiated Products, Divided Industries
Differentiated Products, Divided Industries

Author: Iain Osgood

Publisher:

Published: 2016

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13:

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The recent focus on firms in international trade suggests two conjectures about preferences over trade policy - only the most productive firms should support freer trade, and industries can be internally divided over reciprocal liberalization. This paper clarifies the content and scope of these claims. The most productive firms are generally not the greatest beneficiaries from trade liberalization and may oppose further liberalization due to increased competition in export markets from compatriot firms. Exporting industries will feature no support for trade if foreign competition is too strong or barriers too unequal. The key analytic factor generating intra-industry division is product differentiation, both directly, by increasing export opportunities for less efficient firms, and by inducing home market effects wherein larger countries are more competitive. The implications of these findings for the distributional effects of liberalization and the study of trade politics are discussed.

Differentiated Products, Divided Industries: Firms and the Politics of Intra-Industry Trade
Differentiated Products, Divided Industries: Firms and the Politics of Intra-Industry Trade

Author: Iain Guthrie Osgood

Publisher:

Published: 2013

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13:

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Which firms support trade liberalization and under what circumstances? The dominant approaches to trade politics ignore two key features of modern international commerce -- firm heterogeneity in export performance and intra-industry trade -- which jointly imply that industries will be divided over bilateral trade liberalization. This dissertation examines the impact of these features on the politics of trade, exploring the preferences of firms, the attitudes of industries, and the motivations of politicians, in turn. When products are differentiated, firms which do not export generally oppose trade liberalization even in industries at a comparative advantage relative to their foreign trade partners. Not all exporting firms will be supporters of trade, however. For example, the largest exporters may oppose trade liberalization in their export markets due to increased competition from compatriot firms. It is then argued that industries are most likely to be divided where product differentiation is high and differences in competitiveness between trade partners are muted. This pattern is documented empirically in a study of US industries' attitudes toward the US-Korea and US-Australia Free Trade Agreements. Finally, a complete political economic model of trade policy determination with heterogeneous firms is developed. The changing preferences of politicians across different economic and institutional settings are explored, and comparative statics identified which show how equilibrium tariffs change with key industry features.

The Economic Theory of Product Differentiation
The Economic Theory of Product Differentiation

Author: John Beath

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 1991-02-22

Total Pages: 220

ISBN-13: 9780521335522

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There are few industries in modern market economies that do not manufacture differentiated products. This book provides a systematic explanation and analysis of the widespread prevalence of this important category of products. The authors concentrate on models in which product selection is endogenous. In the first four chapters they consider models that try to predict the level of product differentiation that would emerge in situations of market equilibrium. These market equilibria with differentiated products are characterised and then compared with social welfare optima. Particular attention is paid to the distinction between horizontal and vertical differentiation as well as to the related issues of product quality and durability. This book brings together the most important theoretical contributions to these topics in a succinct and coherent manner. One of its major strengths is the way in which it carefully sets out the basic intuition behind the formal results. It will be useful to advanced undergraduate and graduate students taking courses in industrial economics and microeconomic theory.

Surviving the U.S. Import Market
Surviving the U.S. Import Market

Author: Tibor Besedes

Publisher:

Published: 2004

Total Pages: 52

ISBN-13:

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"We examine the extent that product differentiation affects the duration of US import trade relationships. Applying nonparametric and semiparametric techniques to highly disaggregated product-level data we estimate that the hazard rate is at least 18 percent higher for homogenous goods than for differentiated products. Put another way, the median survival time for trade relationships involving differentiated products is five years as compared to two years for homogenous products. We find that our results are not only highly robust but often are strengthened under alternative specifications. For instance, if we define trade relationships using industry-level rather than product-level data we find that the hazard rate is 30-35 percent higher for homogenous goods than for differentiated products. We also find that the survival ranking across product types holds across individual industries. We show that dropping the smallest trade relationships further accentuates the differences among product types. We also control for the possible measurement error in measuring spell lengths and the role of multiple spell relationships and find that in all cases the differences among products types are greater than in our benchmark analysis"--NBER website