Geography, competition and optimal multilateral trade policy

Antonella Nocco, Gianmarco Ottaviano and Matteo Salto

LSE Research Online Documents on Economics from London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library

Abstract: How should multilateral trade policy be designed in a world in which countries differ in terms of market access and technology, and firms with market power differ in terms of productivity? We answer this question in a model of monopolistic competition in which variable markups increasing in firm size are a key source of misallocation across firms and countries. We use `disadvantaged' to refer to countries with smaller market size, worse state of technology (in terms of higher innovation and production costs), and worse geography (in terms of more remoteness from other countries). We show that, in a global welfare perspective, optimal multilateral trade policy should: promote the sales of low cost firms to all countries, but especially to disadvantaged ones; trim the sales of high cost firms to all countries, but especially to disadvantaged ones; reduce firm entry in all countries, but especially in disadvantaged ones. This would not only restore efficiency but also reduce welfare inequality between advantaged and disadvantaged countries if their differences in market size, state of technology and geography are large enough.

Keywords: international trade policy; monopolistic competition; firm heterogeneity; pricing to market; multilateralism (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D4 D6 F1 L0 L1 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 37 pages
Date: 2019-03-25
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

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http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/102632/ Open access version. (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Geography, competition, and optimal multilateral trade policy (2019)
Working Paper: Geography, Competition, and Optimal Multilateral Trade Policy (2019)
Working Paper: Geography, competition and optimal multilateral trade policy (2019)
Working Paper: Geography, Competition, and Optimal Multilateral Trade Policy (2019)
Working Paper: Geography, Competition, and Optimal Multilateral Trade Policy (2019)
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