Beyond Icebergs: Modeling Globalization as Biased Technical Change

Kiminori Matsuyama

No 1390, Discussion Papers from Northwestern University, Center for Mathematical Studies in Economics and Management Science

Abstract: We propose a new approach to model costly international trade, which includes the standard approach, the “iceberg” transport cost, as a special case. The key idea is to make the technologies of supplying the good depend on the destination of the good. To demonstrate our approach, we extend the Ricardian model with a continuum of goods, due to Dornbusch, Fischer and Samuelson (1977), by introducing multiple factors of production and by making each industry consist of the domestic division, which supplies the good at home, and the export division, which supplies the good abroad. If the two divisions differ only in the total factor productivity, our model becomes isomorphic to the DFS model with the iceberg transport cost. When the two divisions differ also in the factor intensity, globalization changes the relative factor prices in the same direction across the countries, in sharp contrast to the usual Stolper-Samuelson effect, which suggests that the relative factor prices move in different directions in different countries.

Date: 2004-07
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-int
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.kellogg.northwestern.edu/research/math/papers/1390.pdf main text (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: Beyond Icebergs: Modeling Globalization as Biased Technical Change (2004)
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:nwu:cmsems:1390

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Discussion Papers from Northwestern University, Center for Mathematical Studies in Economics and Management Science Center for Mathematical Studies in Economics and Management Science, Northwestern University, 580 Jacobs Center, 2001 Sheridan Road, Evanston, IL 60208-2014. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Fran Walker ( this e-mail address is bad, please contact ).