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Trade costs, home bias and the unequal gains from trade

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  • Hillrichs, Dorothee
  • Vannoorenberghe, Gonzague

Abstract

International trade affects consumption prices, with potentially different impacts on poor and rich consumers. We study these unequal impacts building on the Almost Ideal Demand System (AIDS) gravity model of Fajgelbaum and Khandelwal (2016). We augment the original model with a home bias in tastes and allow for trade costs to differ for domestic and foreign trade. In this setup, we show that the structural parameters governing the welfare gains are highly sensitive to the determinants of spending on domestic goods. This extension largely weakens the pro-poor bias of trade which leads us to conclude that the AIDS gravity framework does not generate robust results about the distributive effects of trade within countries.

Suggested Citation

  • Hillrichs, Dorothee & Vannoorenberghe, Gonzague, 2022. "Trade costs, home bias and the unequal gains from trade," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 139(C).
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:inecon:v:139:y:2022:i:c:s0022199622001167
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jinteco.2022.103684
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    Cited by:

    1. Dorothee Hillrichs & Gonzague Vannoorenberghe, 2021. "Recovering Within-Country Inequality From Trade Data," LIDAM Discussion Papers IRES 2021014, Université catholique de Louvain, Institut de Recherches Economiques et Sociales (IRES).
    2. Yoto V. Yotov, 2022. "On the role of domestic trade flows for estimating the gravity model of trade," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 40(3), pages 526-540, July.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    International trade; Welfare; Non-homothetic preferences; Home bias;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • F10 - International Economics - - Trade - - - General
    • F14 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Empirical Studies of Trade
    • F61 - International Economics - - Economic Impacts of Globalization - - - Microeconomic Impacts
    • D63 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Equity, Justice, Inequality, and Other Normative Criteria and Measurement

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