Trade Liberalization, Growth, and Productivity

Timothy Kehoe, Mark Gibson (), Kim J. Ruhl and Claustre Bajna
Additional contact information
Kim J. Ruhl: Stern School, New York University
Claustre Bajna: Ryerson University

No 794, 2011 Meeting Papers from Society for Economic Dynamics

Abstract: We investigate the theoretical relationship between trade policy and growth. We use simple versions of some of the most common international trade models to investigate a number of specific mechanisms by which trade liberalization is thought to enhance growth or productivity: improvements in the terms of trade, increases in product variety, reallocation toward more productive firms, and an increased incentive to accumulate capital. In each model, trade liberalization improves social welfare. This is to be expected, but our results on real GDP may come as a surprise. In the static models, there is no general connection between trade liberalization and increases in real GDP per capita â the relationship may even be negative. In a dynamic model with capital accumulation, some countries will have slower rates of growth under free trade than under autarky. Opening to trade improves welfare, but does not necessarily increase real GDP per capita or speed up growth. If openness does in fact lead to large increases in real GDP, these increases do not come from the standard mechanisms of international trade.

Date: 2011
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (20)

There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it.

Related works:
Working Paper: Trade liberalization growth and productivity (2008)
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:red:sed011:794

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in 2011 Meeting Papers from Society for Economic Dynamics Society for Economic Dynamics Marina Azzimonti Department of Economics Stonybrook University 10 Nicolls Road Stonybrook NY 11790 USA. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Christian Zimmermann ().