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Per Capita Income, Market Access Costs, and Trade Volumes

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  • Tarasov, Alexander
Abstract
There is strong empirical evidence that countries with lower per capita income tend to have smaller trade volumes even after controlling for aggregate income. Furthermore, poorer countries do not just trade less, but have a lower number of trading partners. In this paper, I construct and estimate a general equilibrium model of trade that captures both these features of the trade data. There are two novelties in the paper. First, I introduce an association between market access costs and countries' development levels, which can account for the effect of per capita income on trade volumes and explain many zeros in bilateral trade flows. Secondly, I develop an estimation procedure, which allows me to estimate both variable and fixed costs of trade. I find that given the estimated parameters, the model performs well in matching the data. In particular, the predicted trade elasticity with respect to income per capita is close to that in the data.

Suggested Citation

  • Tarasov, Alexander, 2008. "Per Capita Income, Market Access Costs, and Trade Volumes," MPRA Paper 19989, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised Dec 2009.
    • Handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:19989
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Citations

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    Cited by:

    1. Parteka, Aleksandra & Tamberi, Massimo, 2013. "Product diversification, relative specialisation and economic development: Import–export analysis," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 38(PA), pages 121-135.
    2. Yonatan Berman & Yoash Shapira & Eshel Ben-Jacob, 2014. "Unraveling Hidden Order in the Dynamics of Developed and Emerging Markets," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 9(11), pages 1-10, November.
    3. Christian Hepenstrick & Alexander Tarasov, 2015. "Per capita income and the extensive margin of bilateral trade," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 48(4), pages 1561-1599, November.
    4. Mallick, Sushanta & Marques, Helena, 2017. "Export prices, selection into exporting and market size: Evidence from China and India," International Business Review, Elsevier, vol. 26(6), pages 1034-1050.
    5. Steven Husted & Eugene Bempong-Nyantakyi & Shuichiro Nishioka, 2014. "Trade Frictions and Market Access of Developing Countries: A Product-Level Empirical Analysis," Working Paper 521, Department of Economics, University of Pittsburgh, revised Jan 2014.
    6. Mallick, Sushanta & Marques, Helena, 2016. "Pricing strategy of emerging market exporters in alternate currency regimes: The role of comparative advantage," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 45(C), pages 68-81.
    7. Cosmas S. Mbogela, 2018. "Determinants of Africa - BRIC Countries Bilateral Trade Flows," Economy, Asian Online Journal Publishing Group, vol. 5(1), pages 40-53.
    8. repec:lmu:muenec:15421 is not listed on IDEAS
    9. David Gomtsyan & Alexander Tarasov, 2022. "Exporting costs and multi‐product shipments," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 124(4), pages 990-1023, October.
    10. Christian Hepenstrick & Alexander Tarasov, 2015. "Trade Openness and Cross-country Income Differences," Review of International Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 23(2), pages 271-302, May.
    11. Jaimovich, Esteban, 2012. "Import diversification along the growth path," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 117(1), pages 306-310.
    12. Eugene Bempong Nyantakyi & Steven Husted & Shuichiro Nishioka, 2015. "Trade Frictions and Market Access of Developing Countries: A Product-level Empirical Investigation," Review of International Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 23(5), pages 924-945, November.
    13. Xiaohua Bao, 2014. "Special Issue: Issues in Asia. Guest Editor: Laixun Zhao," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 18(2), pages 286-299, May.
    14. Parteka, Aleksandra & Tamberi, Massimo, 2013. "Product diversification, relative specialisation and economic development: Import–export analysis," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 38(PA), pages 121-135.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    export zeros; fixed costs of trade; country extensive margin.;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • F11 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Neoclassical Models of Trade

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