IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/oup/qjecon/v110y1995i3p799-836..html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Monopolistic Competition and International Trade: Reconsidering the Evidence

Author

Listed:
  • David Hummels
  • James Levinsohn

Abstract

We test some propositions about international trade flows that are derived from models of monopolistic competition developed by Elhanan Helpman and Paul Krugman. We investigate whether the volume of trade between OECD countries is consistent with the predictions of a model in which all trade is intraindustry trade in differentiated products. We then repeat the test with non-OECD countries. We also investigate whether the share of intraindustry trade is consistent with a more general theoretical model in which some, but not all, trade is intraindustry trade. Our results lead us to question the apparent empirical success of these models.

Suggested Citation

  • David Hummels & James Levinsohn, 1995. "Monopolistic Competition and International Trade: Reconsidering the Evidence," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 110(3), pages 799-836.
    • Handle: RePEc:oup:qjecon:v:110:y:1995:i:3:p:799-836.
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.2307/2946700
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    ---><---

    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:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. repec:fth:michin:324 is not listed on IDEAS
    2. Hummels, David & Levinsohn, James A, 1993. "Product Differentiation as a," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 83(2), pages 445-449, May.
    3. Hummels, D. & Levinsohn, J., 1993. "Product Differentiation as a Source of Comparative Advantage?," Working Papers 324, Research Seminar in International Economics, University of Michigan.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Peter K. Schott, 2001. "Do Rich and Poor Countries Specialize in a Different Mix of Goods? Evidence from Product-Level US Trade Data," NBER Working Papers 8492, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Juliette Milgram‐Baleix & Ana I. Moro‐Egido, 2010. "The Asymmetric Effect of Endowments on Vertical Intra‐industrial Trade," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 33(5), pages 746-777, May.
    3. Federico Trionfetti, 2001. "Using home-biased demand to test trade theories," Review of World Economics (Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv), Springer;Institut für Weltwirtschaft (Kiel Institute for the World Economy), vol. 137(3), pages 404-426, September.
    4. Bournakis, Ioannis & Tsoukis, Christopher, 2016. "Government size, institutions, and export performance among OECD economies," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 53(C), pages 37-47.
    5. Mathä, Thomas, 2001. "Non-Tariff Barriers, Market Access and Trade," SSE/EFI Working Paper Series in Economics and Finance 455, Stockholm School of Economics.
    6. Feenstra, Robert C. & Yang, Tzu-Han & Hamilton, Gary G., 1999. "Business groups and product variety in trade: evidence from South Korea, Taiwan and Japan," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 48(1), pages 71-100, June.
    7. Huiwen Lai & Daniel Trefler, 2002. "The Gains from Trade with Monopolistic Competition: Specification, Estimation, and Mis-Specification," NBER Working Papers 9169, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. Eichengreen, Barry & Irwin, Douglas A., 1995. "Trade blocs, currency blocs and the reorientation of world trade in the 1930s," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 38(1-2), pages 1-24, February.
    9. Michael Funke & Ralf Ruhwedel, 2002. "Export variety and export performance: Empirical evidence for the OECD countries," Review of World Economics (Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv), Springer;Institut für Weltwirtschaft (Kiel Institute for the World Economy), vol. 138(1), pages 97-114, March.
    10. Yener Kandogan, 2003. "TDoes Product Differentiation Explain The Increase in Exports of Transition Countries?," William Davidson Institute Working Papers Series 2003-599, William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan.
    11. Gianpaolo Rossini & Michele Burattoni, 1996. "Trade and convergence between rich and developing countries: Some empirical evidence on macrodeterminants of specialization," Review of World Economics (Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv), Springer;Institut für Weltwirtschaft (Kiel Institute for the World Economy), vol. 132(1), pages 75-96, March.
    12. Robert C. Shelburne, 2002. "Bilateral Intra-Industry Trade in a Multi-Country Helpman-Krugman Model," International Economic Journal, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 16(4), pages 53-73.
    13. Lerda, Juan Carlos, 1996. "Globalización de la economía y pérdida de autonomía de las autoridades fiscales, bancarias y monetarias," Sede de la CEPAL en Santiago (Estudios e Investigaciones) 34271, Naciones Unidas Comisión Económica para América Latina y el Caribe (CEPAL).
    14. Feenstra, R.C. & Yang, T.H. & Hamilton, G.G., 1993. "Market Structure and International Trade: Business Groups in East Asia," Papers 93-23, California Davis - Institute of Governmental Affairs.
    15. Leamer, Edward E. & Levinsohn, James, 1995. "International trade theory: The evidence," Handbook of International Economics, in: G. M. Grossman & K. Rogoff (ed.), Handbook of International Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 26, pages 1339-1394, Elsevier.
    16. F Trionfetti, 1999. "On the Home Market Effect: Theory and Empirical Evidence," CEP Discussion Papers dp0430, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    17. Canning, Patrick N. & Perez, Agnes C., 2008. "Economic Geography Of The U.S. Wine Industry," Working Papers 43891, American Association of Wine Economists.
    18. Gianni De Fraja & George Norman, 2004. "Product Differentiation and the Location of International Production," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 13(1), pages 151-170, March.
    19. Committee, Nobel Prize, 2008. "Paul Krugman: Trade and Geography - Economies of Scale, Differentiated Products and Transport Costs," Nobel Prize in Economics documents 2008-2, Nobel Prize Committee.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • F1 - International Economics - - Trade

    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:oup:qjecon:v:110:y:1995:i:3:p:799-836.. 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.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with 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: Oxford University Press (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://academic.oup.com/qje .

    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.