[go: up one dir, main page]
IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/red/sed004/802.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

An Anatomy of International Trade: Evidence from French Firms

Author

Listed:
  • Jonathan Eaton
  • Samuel Kortum
Abstract
Data on the individual export destinations of French firms shed light on the nature of entry barriers to national markets. The data reveal some striking regularities: (1) Looking across des tinations, the relationship between market size, French market share, and the number of French firms selling there is very tight, with the number of participants rising almost in proportion with respect to market share and with an elasticity of about two-thirds with respect to market size. (2) Looking across firms, most exporters sell to very few markets while a small number sell almost everywhere. Firms that export more widely sell much more within France and have higher value-added per worker. We show that a simple Ricardian model of export behavior with Cournot competition and a fixed cost of entry, calibrated to data on trade shares around the world, can explain these features. A relatively low fixed cost implies a di¤erence in the number of goods supplied to the largest and smallest markets of a factor of nearly 500. But with our assumption about the elasticity of substitution across commodities and our model's implication that lowest cost suppliers are verrepresented in the smallest markets, the implied welfare advantage is only 1.5

Suggested Citation

  • Jonathan Eaton & Samuel Kortum, 2004. "An Anatomy of International Trade: Evidence from French Firms," 2004 Meeting Papers 802, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    • Handle: RePEc:red:sed004:802
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.econ.nyu.edu/user/eatonj/EKK5.pdf
    File Function: main text
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Jonathan Eaton & Samuel Kortum & Francis Kramarz, 2004. "Dissecting Trade: Firms, Industries, and Export Destinations," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 94(2), pages 150-154, May.
    2. Sofronis K. Clerides & Saul Lach & James R. Tybout, 1998. "Is Learning by Exporting Important? Micro-Dynamic Evidence from Colombia, Mexico, and Morocco," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 113(3), pages 903-947.
    3. Krugman, Paul, 1980. "Scale Economies, Product Differentiation, and the Pattern of Trade," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 70(5), pages 950-959, December.
    4. Andrew B. Bernard & Jonathan Eaton & J. Bradford Jensen & Samuel Kortum, 2003. "Plants and Productivity in International Trade," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 93(4), pages 1268-1290, September.
    5. Bernard, Andrew B. & Bradford Jensen, J., 1999. "Exceptional exporter performance: cause, effect, or both?," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 47(1), pages 1-25, February.
    6. Biscourp, Pierre & Kramarz, Francis, 2007. "Employment, skill structure and international trade: Firm-level evidence for France," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 72(1), pages 22-51, May.
    7. Robert C. Feenstra & Robert E. Lipsey & Harry P. Bowen, 1997. "World Trade Flows, 1970-1992, with Production and Tariff Data," NBER Working Papers 5910, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. Costas Arkolakis, 2010. "Market Penetration Costs and the New Consumers Margin in International Trade," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 118(6), pages 1151-1199.
    9. Robert Dekle & Jonathan Eaton & Samuel Kortum, 2008. "Global Rebalancing with Gravity: Measuring the Burden of Adjustment," IMF Staff Papers, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 55(3), pages 511-540, July.
    10. Xavier Gabaix & Rustam Ibragimov, 2011. "Rank - 1 / 2: A Simple Way to Improve the OLS Estimation of Tail Exponents," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 29(1), pages 24-39, January.
    11. Goffe, William L. & Ferrier, Gary D. & Rogers, John, 1994. "Global optimization of statistical functions with simulated annealing," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 60(1-2), pages 65-99.
    12. Xavier Gabaix, 1999. "Zipf's Law for Cities: An Explanation," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 114(3), pages 739-767.
    13. Marc J. Melitz, 2003. "The Impact of Trade on Intra-Industry Reallocations and Aggregate Industry Productivity," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 71(6), pages 1695-1725, November.
    14. Bee Yan Aw & Sukkyun Chung & Mark J. Roberts, 1998. "Productivity and the Decision to Export: Micro Evidence from Taiwan and South Korea," NBER Working Papers 6558, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    15. Erzo G. J. Luttmer, 2007. "Selection, Growth, and the Size Distribution of Firms," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 122(3), pages 1103-1144.
    16. Alvarez, Fernando & Lucas, Robert Jr., 2007. "General equilibrium analysis of the Eaton-Kortum model of international trade," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 54(6), pages 1726-1768, September.
    17. Horowitz, Joel L., 2001. "The Bootstrap," Handbook of Econometrics, in: J.J. Heckman & E.E. Leamer (ed.), Handbook of Econometrics, edition 1, volume 5, chapter 52, pages 3159-3228, Elsevier.
    18. Roberts, Mark J & Tybout, James R, 1997. "The Decision to Export in Colombia: An Empirical Model of Entry with Sunk Costs," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 87(4), pages 545-564, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Jonathan Eaton, Marcela Eslava, Maurice Kugler,James Tybout, 1970. "Export Dynamics in Colombia: Firm-Level Evidence," Working Papers eg0036, Wilfrid Laurier University, Department of Economics, revised 1970.
    2. Baldwin, Richard E. & Robert-Nicoud, Frederic, 2008. "Trade and growth with heterogeneous firms," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 74(1), pages 21-34, January.
    3. Jonathan Eaton & Marcela Eslava & Maurice Kugler & James Tybout, 2008. "Export Dynamics in Colombia: Transactions Level Evidence," Borradores de Economia 522, Banco de la Republica de Colombia.
    4. Nguyen, Daniel X., 2012. "Demand uncertainty: Exporting delays and exporting failures," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 86(2), pages 336-344.
    5. Melitz, Marc J. & Redding, Stephen J., 2014. "Heterogeneous Firms and Trade," Handbook of International Economics, in: Gopinath, G. & Helpman, . & Rogoff, K. (ed.), Handbook of International Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 0, pages 1-54, Elsevier.
    6. Joel Rodrigue, 2014. "Multinational Production, Exports and Aggregate Productivity," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 17(2), pages 243-261, April.
    7. Anders Akerman & Rikard Forslid, 2009. "Firm Heterogeneity and Country Size Dependent Market Entry Costs," Global COE Hi-Stat Discussion Paper Series gd09-056, Institute of Economic Research, Hitotsubashi University.
    8. Martin Andersson & Sara Johansson & Hans Lööf, 2012. "Firm Performance and International Trade – Evidence from a Small Open Economy," Chapters, in: Charlie Karlsson & Börje Johansson & Roger R. Stough (ed.), The Regional Economics of Knowledge and Talent, chapter 13, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    9. Maria Bas & Vanessa Strauss-Kahn, 2014. "Does importing more inputs raise exports? Firm-level evidence from France," Review of World Economics (Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv), Springer;Institut für Weltwirtschaft (Kiel Institute for the World Economy), vol. 150(2), pages 241-275, May.
    10. Alessandria, George & Choi, Horag, 2014. "Establishment heterogeneity, exporter dynamics, and the effects of trade liberalization," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 94(2), pages 207-223.
    11. Costas Arkolakis, 2010. "Market Penetration Costs and the New Consumers Margin in International Trade," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 118(6), pages 1151-1199.
    12. di Giovanni, Julian & Levchenko, Andrei A., 2013. "Firm entry, trade, and welfare in Zipf's world," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 89(2), pages 283-296.
    13. Impullitti, Giammario & Irarrazabal, Alfonso A. & Opromolla, Luca David, 2013. "A theory of entry into and exit from export markets," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 90(1), pages 75-90.
    14. Martin Kliem & Alexander Kriwoluzky, 2014. "Toward a Taylor Rule for Fiscal Policy," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 17(2), pages 294-302, April.
    15. Wagner, Rodrigo & Zahler, Andrés, 2015. "New exports from emerging markets: Do followers benefit from pioneers?," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 114(C), pages 203-223.
    16. Güzin Bayar, 2018. "Estimating export equations: a survey of the literature," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 54(2), pages 629-672, March.
    17. Rubini, Loris, 2014. "Innovation and the trade elasticity," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 66(C), pages 32-46.
    18. Marcela Eslava & James Tybout & David Jinkins & C. Krizan & Jonathan Eaton, 2015. "A Search and Learning Model of Export Dynamics," 2015 Meeting Papers 1535, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    19. Elhanan Helpman, 2010. "Labor Market Frictions as a Source of Comparative Advantage, with Implications for Unemployment and Inequality," NBER Working Papers 15764, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    20. Francesco Serti & Chiara Tomasi, 2008. "Self-Selection and Post-Entry Effects of Exports: Evidence from Italian Manufacturing Firms," Review of World Economics (Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv), Springer;Institut für Weltwirtschaft (Kiel Institute for the World Economy), vol. 144(4), pages 660-694, December.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Firm Level Trade;

    JEL classification:

    • F14 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Empirical Studies of Trade

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:red:sed004:802. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Christian Zimmermann (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/sedddea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.