Competition and Quality Upgrading

Mary Amiti and ,
Authors registered in the RePEc Author Service: Amit Khandelwal

No 7562, CEPR Discussion Papers from C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers

Abstract: How does competition affect innovation? We address this question by using a novel approach to measure quality - an important component of innovation - using highly disaggregated product data for a large set of countries. Constructing an internationally comparable measure of quality enables us to separate the effect of reducing import tariffs, our measure of competition, on quality upgrading from other country level differences in competitive environments, and product demand shocks. We base our analysis on recent theoretical frameworks that predict that the effect of competition on innovation depends on firms? proximity to the world technological frontier. As predicted by theory, we find that lower tariffs are associated with quality upgrading for products close to the world frontier; whereas lower tariffs discourage quality upgrading for varieties distant from the frontier.

Keywords: Quality upgrading; Competition; Proximity to frontier; Growth (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: F1 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2009-11
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cse and nep-tid
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (16)

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