Recent literature on the workhorse model of intra-industry trade has explored heterogeneous cost structures at the firm level. These approaches have proven to add realism and predictive power. This paper presents a new and simple heterogeneous-firms specification. We develop a symmetric...

This paper has made an attempt to show that in a developing economy, agriculture and Special Economic Zones (SEZ) can go simultaneously without affecting one another if appropriate subsidy policy is designed by the government. We have considered increasing returns brought about by external...

This paper employs an endogenous merger formation approach in a two-country oligopoly model of trade to examine the international linkages between the nature of mergers and tariff levels. Firms sell differentiated products and compete in a Bertrand fashion in product markets. We find two effects...

Using an oligopoly model of trade, we study the individual and world welfare implications of hub and spoke trade agreements. Under a hub and spoke regime, the hub country can benefit at the expense of the spokes relative to free trade. Furthermore, if the hub is sufficiently efficient compared...

This paper develops a method to measure difficulties in market access over a large set of countries (both developing and developed) and industries, during the period 1980-2006. We use a micro-founded heterogeneous-consumers model to estimate the impact of national borders on global and regional...

Using an oligopoly model of trade with asymmetric costs, we study the individual and world welfare implications of a hub and spoke trade agreement where the hub country is more efficient than spoke countries. Under a hub and spoke trade regime, the hub country can benefit at the expense of the...

This study of the Italian wool-based textile industries (woollens, worsteds, and serges) seeks to examine its rise, expansion, and ultimate decline, over a period of five centuries (from ca. 1200 to ca. 1730) in the context of both international competition and economic conjoncture, in the...

This paper shows that the Armington elasticity, which refers to both the elasticity of substitution across goods and the price elasticity of demand under the assumption of a large number of varieties, systematically changes from one importer country to another in an international trade context....

We examine the implications of a customs union (CU) on the pattern of tariffs, welfare and the prospects for free trade when the nonmember firm has an incentive to engage in foreign direct investment (FDI). First we show that upon the formation of a bilateral CU, the non-member firm has greater...

This paper focuses on the necessary conditions required in order to exploit the substitution effect which arises when there is a shift in demand induced by import quotas under imperfect competition. The protective policy succeeds if the substitution effect shifts in favor of goods produced by...