Trade and Firm Heterogeneity In A Quality-Ladder Model of Growth

Tetsugen Haruyama and Laixun Zhao

No 223, Discussion Paper Series from Research Institute for Economics & Business Administration, Kobe University

Abstract: The present paper explores the effect of trade liberalization on the level of productivity as well as the rate of productivity growth in an R&Dbased model with heterogeneous firms. We introduce new and plausible features that are absent in existing studies. First, technical progress takes the form of continual quality improvement of products over time. Second, firm entry and exit are endogenously determined due to creative destruction of products traded. In this framework, we demonstrate that a lower transport cost or export sunk cost unambiguously reallocates resources from non-exporting industries to R&D as well as exporting industries. This means that trade liberalization increases the level of manufacturing productivity and the rate of technical progress. These results are found to be robust in an extended model with population growth without scale effects. In extensions of the basic model, we also endogenize the ex ante distribution of firm heterogeneity and examine the effect of R&D subsidies.

Pages: 46 pages
Date: 2008-04
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-int
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (22)

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