Shipping the Good Apples Out? An Empirical Confirmation of the Alchian-Allen Conjecture

David Hummels and Alexandre Skiba ()

No 9023, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: We model demand for quality differentiated goods to derive a relationship between trade costs and the quality composition of trade. Detailed data on traded goods' prices, quantities and shipping costs for many importers and exporters are used to test these predictions. These data provide a strong rejection of the iceberg assumption on transportation costs and a strong confirmation of the classical Alchian Allen hypothesis. Within a narrowly defined commodity classification, exporters charge destination-varying prices that co-vary positively with shipping costs and negatively with tariffs. Shipping costs operate as a quantitative restriction similar to quotas.

JEL-codes: F1 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2002-06
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-mic
Note: ITI
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

Published as David Hummels & Alexandre Skiba, 2004. "Shipping the Good Apples Out? An Empirical Confirmation of the Alchian-Allen Conjecture," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 112(6), pages 1384-1402, December.

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.nber.org/papers/w9023.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Shipping the Good Apples Out? An Empirical Confirmation of the Alchian-Allen Conjecture (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:nbr:nberwo:9023

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
http://www.nber.org/papers/w9023

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc National Bureau of Economic Research, 1050 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge, MA 02138, U.S.A.. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().