Alchian and Allen show that a per unit transactions cost lowers the relative price of, and raises the relative demand for, high-quality goods. We extend their theory, deriving a relationship between per unit and ad valorem trade costs and the quality composition of trade. Detailed international...

There is widespread evidence that geographical borders reduce trade. This paper presents a theoretical model capable of providing a succinct comparison of three broad forms of trade barriers involving i) trade costs, ii) localized tastes, and iii) information frictions. Despite being...

We stress some efficiency aspects of monopolistic competition justifying it on account of its tendency to innovate and the questionable excess capacity paradigm. Some further efficiency aspects revealed are product variety and transaction cost savings. We view the monopolistically competitive...

In this paper, I investigate welfare gains associated with trade induced intra-firm adjustments of multi-product firms. To disentangle the welfare gains, I split up the R&D portfolio of a multi-product firm into three different channels: i) product innovation, ii) investments in the degree of...