Unpacking Sources of Comparative Advantage: A Quantitative Approach

Davin Chor

Macroeconomics Working Papers from East Asian Bureau of Economic Research

Abstract: This paper develops an approach for quantifying the importance of different sources of comparative advantage for country welfare. To explain patterns of specialization, I present a multi-country trade model that extends Eaton and Kortum (2002) to predict industry trade ows. In this framework, comparative advantage is determined by the interaction of country and industry characteristics, with countries specializing in industries whose specific production needs they are best able to meet with their factor endowments and institutional strengths. I estimate the model parameters on a large dataset of bilateral trade ows, presenting results from both a baseline OLS approach, as well as a simulated method of moments (SMM) procedure to account for the prevalence of zero trade ows in the data. I apply the model to explore various quantitative questions, in particular how much distance, Ricardian productivity, factor endowments, and institutional conditions each matter for country welfare in the global trade equilibrium. I also illustrate the shift in industry composition and the accompanying welfare gains in policy experiments where a country raises its factor endowments or improves the quality of its institutions.

Keywords: Comparative Advantage; bilateral trade flows; Gravity; Ricardian model; Factor Endowments; institutional determinants of trade; simulated method of moments (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C15 F11 F15 F17 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2008-01
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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Related works:
Journal Article: Unpacking sources of comparative advantage: A quantitative approach (2010)
Working Paper: Unpacking Sources of Comparative Advantage: A Quantitative Approach (2008)
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