Trade Liberalization and Productivity Growth

Paul Segerstrom and Peter Gustafsson

No 5894, CEPR Discussion Papers from C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers

Abstract: This paper presents a trade model with firm-level productivity differences and R&D-driven growth. Trade liberalization causes the least productive firms to exit but also slows the development of new products. The overall effect on productivity growth depends on the size of intertemporal knowledge spillovers in R&D. When these spillovers are relatively weak, then trade liberalization promotes productivity growth in the short run and makes consumers better off in the long run. However, when these spillovers are relatively strong, then trade liberalization retards productivity growth in the short run and makes consumers worse off in the long run.

Keywords: International trade; Trade liberalization; Productivity growth; Heterogenous firms; Endogenous fimrs (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: F12 F13 O31 O41 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2006-10
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-eff and nep-int
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (15)

Downloads: (external link)
https://cepr.org/publications/DP5894 (application/pdf)
CEPR Discussion Papers are free to download for our researchers, subscribers and members. If you fall into one of these categories but have trouble downloading our papers, please contact us at subscribers@cepr.org

Related works:
Journal Article: Trade Liberalization and Productivity Growth (2010)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:5894

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
https://cepr.org/publications/DP5894

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in CEPR Discussion Papers from C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers Centre for Economic Policy Research, 33 Great Sutton Street, London EC1V 0DX.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().