IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/h/eee/grochp/1-23.html
   My bibliography  Save this book chapter

Trade, Growth and the Size of Countries

In: Handbook of Economic Growth

Author

Listed:
  • Alesina, Alberto
  • Spolaore, Enrico
  • Wacziarg, Romain

Abstract

Normally, economists take the size of countries as an exogenous variable. Nevertheless, the borders of countries and their size change, partially in response to economic factors such as the pattern of international trade. Conversely, the size of countries influences their economic performance and their preferences for international economic policies - for instance smaller countries have a greater stake in maintaining free trade. In this paper, we review the theory and evidence concerning a growing body of research that considers both the impact of market size on growth and the endogenous determination of country size. We argue that our understanding of economic performance and of the history of international economic integration can be greatly improved by bringing the issue of country size at the forefront of the analysis of growth.

Suggested Citation

  • Alesina, Alberto & Spolaore, Enrico & Wacziarg, Romain, 2005. "Trade, Growth and the Size of Countries," Handbook of Economic Growth, in: Philippe Aghion & Steven Durlauf (ed.), Handbook of Economic Growth, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 23, pages 1499-1542, Elsevier.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:grochp:1-23
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/B7P5F-4HP4N1N-D/2/65b5c45cd337103647031d6ae9b0ff63
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • O0 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - General

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:grochp:1-23. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/bookseriesdescription.cws_home/BS_HE/description .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.