IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ses/arsjes/2011-i-3.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Variety Gains from Trade in Switzerland

Author

Listed:
  • Lukas Mohler

Abstract

Since the seminal work of Krugman (1979), variety gains from trade are recognized as an important channel of welfare gains. In this paper, the gains from variety are estimated for Switzerland. It is found that despite the openness of the Swiss economy these gains are not substantial and smaller than in other countries; specifically compared to the gains in the United States. It is shown that the reasons for this result are twofold: First, the Swiss imports are shown not to be as differentiated as their U.S. counterparts; consequently, new varieties do not provide the same value to consumers. Second, variety growth of imports in Switzerland is much smaller compared to variety growth in larger countries. It is furthermore shown that this latter effect is quantitatively more important than the first.

Suggested Citation

  • Lukas Mohler, 2011. "Variety Gains from Trade in Switzerland," Swiss Journal of Economics and Statistics (SJES), Swiss Society of Economics and Statistics (SSES), vol. 147(I), pages 45-70, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:ses:arsjes:2011-i-3
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sjes.ch/papers/2011-I-3.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Michael Spence, 1976. "Product Selection, Fixed Costs, and Monopolistic Competition," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 43(2), pages 217-235.
    2. Lukas Mohler & Michael Seitz, 2012. "The gains from variety in the European Union," Review of World Economics (Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv), Springer;Institut für Weltwirtschaft (Kiel Institute for the World Economy), vol. 148(3), pages 475-500, September.
    3. Broda, Christian & Greenfield, Joshua & Weinstein, David E., 2017. "From groundnuts to globalization: A structural estimate of trade and growth," Research in Economics, Elsevier, vol. 71(4), pages 759-783.
    4. Christian Broda & David E. Weinstein, 2006. "Globalization and the Gains From Variety," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 121(2), pages 541-585.
    5. Krugman, Paul, 1980. "Scale Economies, Product Differentiation, and the Pattern of Trade," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 70(5), pages 950-959, December.
    6. Harris, Richard, 1984. "Applied General Equilibrium Analysis of Small Open Economies with Scale Economies and Imperfect Competition," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 74(5), pages 1016-1032, December.
    7. Feenstra, Robert C, 1994. "New Product Varieties and the Measurement of International Prices," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 84(1), pages 157-177, March.
    8. Bruce A. Blonigen & Anson Soderbery, 2019. "Measuring the Benefits of Foreign Product Variety with an Accurate Variety Set," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Foreign Direct Investment, chapter 15, pages 501-538, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    9. Romer, Paul, 1994. "New goods, old theory, and the welfare costs of trade restrictions," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 43(1), pages 5-38, February.
    10. Peter Egger & Martin Gassebner & Andrea Lassmann, 2009. "Armington Product Variety Growth in Small versus Large Countries," Swiss Journal of Economics and Statistics (SJES), Swiss Society of Economics and Statistics (SSES), vol. 145(IV), pages 411-419, December.
    11. Christian Broda & David E. Weinstein, 2010. "Product Creation and Destruction: Evidence and Price Implications," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 100(3), pages 691-723, June.
    12. Dixit, Avinash K & Stiglitz, Joseph E, 1977. "Monopolistic Competition and Optimum Product Diversity," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 67(3), pages 297-308, June.
    13. Hausman, Jerry, 1999. "Cellular Telephone, New Products, and the CPI," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 17(2), pages 188-194, April.
    14. Jerry A. Hausman, 1997. "Valuing the Effect of Regulation on New Services in Telecommunications," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 28(1997 Micr), pages 1-54.
    15. Costas Arkolakis & Svetlana Demidova & Peter J. Klenow & Andres Rodriguez-Clare, 2008. "Endogenous Variety and the Gains from Trade," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 98(2), pages 444-450, May.
    16. Krugman, Paul R., 1979. "Increasing returns, monopolistic competition, and international trade," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 9(4), pages 469-479, November.
    17. Robert C. Feenstra, 2006. "New Evidence on the Gains from Trade," Review of World Economics (Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv), Springer;Institut für Weltwirtschaft (Kiel Institute for the World Economy), vol. 142(4), pages 617-641, December.
    18. Amil Petrin, 2002. "Quantifying the Benefits of New Products: The Case of the Minivan," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 110(4), pages 705-729, August.
    19. Marc J. Melitz, 2003. "The Impact of Trade on Intra-Industry Reallocations and Aggregate Industry Productivity," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 71(6), pages 1695-1725, November.
    20. Diewert, W. E., 1976. "Exact and superlative index numbers," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 4(2), pages 115-145, May.
    21. Krugman, Paul R, 1981. "Intraindustry Specialization and the Gains from Trade," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 89(5), pages 959-973, October.
    22. Ardelean, Adina & Lugovskyy, Volodymyr, 2010. "Domestic productivity and variety gains from trade," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 80(2), pages 280-291, March.
    23. Sato, Kazuo, 1976. "The Ideal Log-Change Index Number," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 58(2), pages 223-228, May.
    24. Feenstra, Robert & Kee, Hiau Looi, 2008. "Export variety and country productivity: Estimating the monopolistic competition model with endogenous productivity," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 74(2), pages 500-518, March.
    25. Robert C. Feenstra, 1992. "How Costly Is Protectionism?," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 6(3), pages 159-178, Summer.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Luis Marcelo Florensa & Pedro Esteban Moncarz, 2020. "Trade integration strategies and welfare. A comparative study of six selected Latin-American countries," Asociación Argentina de Economía Política: Working Papers 4377, Asociación Argentina de Economía Política.
    2. Lewrick, Ulf & Mohler, Lukas & Weder, Rolf, 2011. "International Trade in Variety and Domestic Production," Working papers 2011/03, Faculty of Business and Economics - University of Basel.
    3. Moncarz Pedro Esteban, 2023. "Impactos de bienestar de los aranceles y las licencias no automáticas a las importaciones. Evidencia para Argentina durante el período 2002-2012," Asociación Argentina de Economía Política: Working Papers 4671, Asociación Argentina de Economía Política.
    4. João Barata R. B. Barroso, 2013. "Does trade shrink the measure of domestic firms?," Working Papers Series 332, Central Bank of Brazil, Research Department.
    5. Christian Hepenstrick, 2016. "The Sources and Magnitudes of Switzerland’s Gains from Trade," Swiss Journal of Economics and Statistics, Springer;Swiss Society of Economics and Statistics, vol. 152(1), pages 1-21, January.
    6. Christian Hepenstrick, 2016. "Switzerland's gains from trade with Europe:," Aussenwirtschaft, University of St. Gallen, School of Economics and Political Science, Swiss Institute for International Economics and Applied Economics Research, vol. 67(03), pages 25-42, December.
    7. Ulf Lewrick & Lukas Mohler & Rolf Weder, 2016. "Trade in variety and domestic production: Evidence from US manufacturing," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 49(4), pages 1631-1657, November.
    8. Philipp Imhof, 2021. "Switzerland's system of free trade agreements: Assessing the impact on imported goods," Aussenwirtschaft, University of St. Gallen, School of Economics and Political Science, Swiss Institute for International Economics and Applied Economics Research, vol. 71(01), pages 35-72, December.

    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. Lukas Mohler & Michael Seitz, 2012. "The gains from variety in the European Union," Review of World Economics (Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv), Springer;Institut für Weltwirtschaft (Kiel Institute for the World Economy), vol. 148(3), pages 475-500, September.
    2. Robert C. Feenstra, 2010. "Measuring the gains from trade under monopolistic competition," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 43(1), pages 1-28, February.
    3. Mohler, Lukas, 2009. "Globalization and the gains from variety: size and openness of countries and the extensive margin," MPRA Paper 17592, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    4. Lewrick, Ulf & Mohler, Lukas & Weder, Rolf, 2011. "International Trade in Variety and Domestic Production," Working papers 2011/03, Faculty of Business and Economics - University of Basel.
    5. repec:wsr:wpaper:y:2009:i:031 is not listed on IDEAS
    6. Lukas Mohler, 2014. "Variety Gains and the Extensive Margin of Trade," International Economic Journal, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 28(4), pages 543-558, December.
    7. Konstantins Benkovskis & Julia Wörz, 2014. "How does taste and quality impact on import prices?," Review of World Economics (Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv), Springer;Institut für Weltwirtschaft (Kiel Institute for the World Economy), vol. 150(4), pages 665-691, November.
    8. Irac, D., 2008. "Access to new imported varieties and total factor productivity: Firm level evidence from France," Working papers 204, Banque de France.
    9. Ardelean, Adina & Lugovskyy, Volodymyr, 2010. "Domestic productivity and variety gains from trade," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 80(2), pages 280-291, March.
    10. Kancs, d'Artis & Persyn, Damiaan, 2019. "Welfare Gains from the Variety Growth," JRC Working Papers in Economics and Finance 2019-01, Joint Research Centre, European Commission.
    11. Konstantins Benkovskis & Julia Wörz, 2011. "How Does Quality Impact on Import Prices?," Working Papers 175, Oesterreichische Nationalbank (Austrian Central Bank).
    12. Shon M. Ferguson, 2015. "Endogenous Product Differentiation, Market Size and Prices," Review of International Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 23(1), pages 45-61, February.
    13. Bouët, Antoine & Estrades, Carmen & Laborde, David, 2011. "Households heterogeneity in a global CGE model: an illustration with the MIRAGE poverty module," Conference papers 332034, Purdue University, Center for Global Trade Analysis, Global Trade Analysis Project.
    14. Keuschnigg, Christian & Kohler, Wilhelm, 1996. "Commercial policy and dynamic adjustment under monopolistic competition," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 40(3-4), pages 373-409, May.
    15. Ulf Lewrick & Lukas Mohler & Rolf Weder, 2016. "Trade in variety and domestic production: Evidence from US manufacturing," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 49(4), pages 1631-1657, November.
    16. Etro, Federico, 2017. "Research in economics and monopolistic competition," Research in Economics, Elsevier, vol. 71(4), pages 645-649.
    17. Konstantins Benkovskis & Ramune Rimgailaite, 2011. "The quality and variety of exports from the new EU member states," The Economics of Transition, The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, vol. 19(4), pages 723-747, October.
    18. Feenstra, Robert C. & Gopinath, Munisamy, 2010. "Chapter 7: The Gains From International Trade Under Monopolistic Competition," 2010: Trade in Agriculture: Much Done, So Much More to Do, December 2010, Berkeley, California 184023, International Agricultural Trade Research Consortium.
    19. Redding, Stephen J. & Weinstein, David E., 2016. "A unified approach to estimating demand and welfare," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 67681, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    20. Behrens, Kristian & Murata, Yasusada, 2012. "Trade, competition, and efficiency," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 87(1), pages 1-17.
    21. Heiland, Inga & Kohler, Wilhelm, 2022. "Heterogeneous workers, trade, and migration," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 144(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    welfare gains from trade; trade in variety; small open economy;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • F12 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Models of Trade with Imperfect Competition and Scale Economies; Fragmentation
    • F14 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Empirical Studies of 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:ses:arsjes:2011-i-3. 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: Kurt Schmidheiny (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/sgvssea.html .

    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.