On the measurement of product variety in trade

Robert C. Feenstra () and Hiau Looi Kee ()

No 3213, Policy Research Working Paper Series from The World Bank

Abstract: Product variety plays an important role in the theoretical work on monopolistic competition and trade, and recent empirical work has begun to quantify this for aggregate and disaggregate import demands. The authors discuss the measurement of product variety in trade, using a broad cross-section of industrial and developing countries and disaggregating across sectors. The authors calculate the export variety of countries in their sales to the United States, and relate the export variety indexes to country productivities. They confirm that countries with greater product variety in exports also have higher productivity. This may be due to their development of and access to these products.

Keywords: Economic Theory&Research; Environmental Economics&Policies; Labor Policies; Banks&Banking Reform; Biodiversity; Economic Theory&Research; Environmental Economics&Policies; Biodiversity; Poverty and Trade; Banks&Banking Reform (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2004-02-01
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Journal Article: On the Measurement of Product Variety in Trade (2004)
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Persistent link: http://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:3213

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