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Income Differences and Prices of Tradables

Author

Listed:
  • Ina Simonovska

    (University of Minnesota)

Abstract
Empirical studies find a strong positive relationship between a country’s per-capita income and price level of final tradable goods. Among alternative explanations of this observation, I focus on variable mark-ups by firms. Mark-ups that vary with destinations’ incomes are evident from a clothing manufacturer’s online catalogue featuring unit prices of identical goods sold in 24 countries. Such price discrimination on the basis of income suggests that firms exploit lower price elasticity of demand for identical goods in richer countries. In order to capture that, I introduce non-homothetic preferences in a model of trade with product differentiation and heterogeneity in firm productivity. The model helps bring theory and data closer along a key dimension: it generates positively related prices and incomes, while preserving desirable features of firm behavior and trade flows of existing frameworks. Quantitatively, the model suggests that variable mark-ups can account for as much as a third of the observed positive relationship between prices of tradables and income across a large sample of countries.

Suggested Citation

  • Ina Simonovska, 2009. "Income Differences and Prices of Tradables," 2009 Meeting Papers 692, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    • Handle: RePEc:red:sed009:692
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • E31 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Price Level; Inflation; Deflation
    • F12 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Models of Trade with Imperfect Competition and Scale Economies; Fragmentation
    • L11 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Production, Pricing, and Market Structure; Size Distribution of Firms

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