Quantitative results from a large class of structural gravity models of international trade depend critically on the elasticity of trade with respect to trade frictions. We develop a new simulated method of moments estimator to estimate this elasticity from disaggregate price and trade-flow data...

We use micro data for Ireland to estimate how export participation and the export revenue of incumbent exporters respond to tariffs and real exchange rates. Both participation and revenue, but especially revenue, are more responsive to tariffs than to real exchange rates. Our estimates translate...

This paper studies the effects of marketing choice to firm growth. I assume that firm-level growth is the result of idiosyncratic productivity improvements with continuous arrival of new potential producers. A firm enters a market if it is profitable to incur the marginal cost to reach the first...

We build a quantitative model of trade with multistage manufacturing value chains, which features iceberg trade costs and technology differences across both goods and production stages. We estimate technology and trade costs via the simulated method of moments, matching bilateral shipments of...

In this paper, a structural gravity model is presented which features intra-sector heterogeneity in agricultural productivity systematically linked to land and climate characteristics. The “systematic heterogeneity” (SH) gravity model predicts that countries with similar land and climate...

This paper re-examines aggregate and disaggregate import and export demand functions for the United States. This re-examination is warranted because (1) income elasticities are too high to be warranted by standard theories, and (2) remain high even when it is assumed that supply factors are...

We propose a novel approach to estimate the trade elasticity at various horizons. When countries change Most Favored Nation (MFN) tariffs, partners that trade on MFN terms experience plausibly exogenous tariff changes. The differential effects on imports from these countries relative to a...

This paper uses a two-good version of Hall's (1978) representative agent, permanent income model to derive a structural import demand equation for nondurable consumer goods. Under the identification restriction that taste shocks are stationary, the model is shown to imply that log imports, log...

The theoretical debate over whether countries can and should set tariffs in response to the foreign export elasticities they face goes back to Edgeworth (1894). Despite the centrality of the optimal tariff argument in trade policy, there exists no evidence about whether countries actually...

This paper investigates the importance of markup behavior in Japanese manufacturing. According to the evidence presented, Japanese firms have varied the markups of prices over marginal costs in order to limit the effects of exchange rate changes on output. This behavior is quite different from...