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 note shows, however, that this added realism also implies that there may exist a positive...

Empirical literature has established a positive link between firm productivity and export status, yet notable exceptions exist. The present paper shows that the underlying theory (Melitz, 2003) is in fact able to accommodate the rule as well as the exception. The fulcrum of the argument is the...

Although a major contribution to trade theory, Krugman’s 1979 demonstration that ‘trade can arise and lead to mutual gains even when countries are similar’ fails to make explicit the economic mechanisms that lead up to this result. The current paper attempts to fill this gap by addressing...

Thispaper examines the performance of non-cooperative environmentalpolicy in the case of local consumption externalities. In a two-countrymodel with monopolistic competiton, governments simultaneouslyimpose environmental product standards. Stricter regulationsforce the industrial sector to shift...

The monetary union issue, when assessed with the traditional inferences for optimal currency areas, misses an important dimension. Increased specialisation induced by reduced transaction costs, suggested by Krugman's “lessons of Massachusettsâ€, is only a part of the story. Even if...

Empirical work on intra-industry trade (IIT) is almost 30 years old. Initial research sought to identify if IIT was a significant share of total trade (TT). The Grubel-Lloyd (GL) index was widely used for this purpose. Interest has since shifted to the changing importance of IITover time. Using...