The impact of 3D printing on trade and FDI

Ana Lucia Abeliansky, Inmaculada Martínez-Zarzoso and Klaus Prettner

VfS Annual Conference 2016 (Augsburg): Demographic Change from Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association

Abstract: This paper analyzes the effects of 3D printing technologies on the volume of trade and on the structure of foreign direct investment (FDI). A standard model with firm-specific heterogeneity generates three main predictions. First, 3D printers are introduced in areas with high economic activity that also face high transport costs. Second, technological progress in 3D printing leads to FDI dependent on traditional production structures gradually being replaced with FDI based on 3D printing techniques. At this stage, international trade remains unaffected. Finally, at later stages, with 3D printers being widely used, further technological progress in 3D printing leads to a gradual replacement of international trade. Empirical evidence indicates that countries subject to higher transport costs and with high levels of economic activity are indeed among those importing more 3D printers. Anecdotal evidence also supports the second and third predictions of the model.

JEL-codes: F10 F23 O33 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-int and nep-tre
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (9)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/145479/1/VfS_2016_pid_6260.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: The impact of 3D printing on trade and FDI (2015)
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:zbw:vfsc16:145479

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in VfS Annual Conference 2016 (Augsburg): Demographic Change from Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics ().