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Firms in international trade

Bernard, Andrew.B, Bradford Jensen, J., Redding, Stephen and Schott, Peter K. (2007) Firms in international trade. . London School of Economics and Political Science. Centre for Economic Performance, London, UK.

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Abstract

Despite the fact that importing and exporting are extremely rare firm activities, economists generally devote little attention to the role of firms when discussing international trade. This paper summarizes key differences between trading and non-trading firms, demonstrates how these differences present a challenge to standard trade models and shows how recent “heterogeneous-firm” models of international trade address these challenges. We then make use of transaction-level U.S. trade data to introduce a number of new stylized facts about firms and trade. These facts reveal that the extensive margins of trade – that is, the number of products firms trade as well as the number of countries with which they trade – are central to understanding the well-known role of distance in dampening aggregate trade flows.

Item Type: Monograph (Discussion Paper)
Official URL: http://cep.lse.ac.uk/
Additional Information: © 2007 A. B. Bernard, J. Bradford Jensen, S. Redding and P. K. Schott
Divisions: Centre for Economic Performance
Economics
Subjects: H Social Sciences > HF Commerce
H Social Sciences > HD Industries. Land use. Labor
JEL classification: F - International Economics > F1 - Trade > F14 - Country and Industry Studies of Trade
O - Economic Development, Technological Change, and Growth > O1 - Economic Development > O10 - General
F - International Economics > F1 - Trade > F12 - Models of Trade with Imperfect Competition and Scale Economies
Date Deposited: 03 Mar 2008
Last Modified: 21 Mar 2024 00:30
URI: http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/id/eprint/3682

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