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Asymmetric Technological Change in the Melitz Model: Are Foreign Technological Improvements Harmful?

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Abstract

Foreign technological advance unambiguously reduces home welfare in a popular variant of the Melitz (2003) model that assumes the presence of a costlessly traded homogeneous good (Demidova, 2008). The present paper shows that this result is sensitive to the presence of such a good and is reversed in its absence. Indeed, in a generalized version of the Melitz model that adds a nontraded good and nests the original version as a special case, we show that foreign technological advance always improves home welfare. We derive relations that require information on only a few parameters to calibrate the model to data. These relations are used to calibrate an international trade model for the United States for quantitative analysis of the welfare effects. US is found to gain much less from foreign technological improvements than its trading partners from US improvements.

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  • Ehsan U. Choudhri & Antonio Marasco, 2014. "Asymmetric Technological Change in the Melitz Model: Are Foreign Technological Improvements Harmful?," Carleton Economic Papers 14-04, Carleton University, Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:car:carecp:14-04
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    11. Demidova, Svetlana & Rodríguez-Clare, Andrés, 2013. "The simple analytics of the Melitz model in a small economy," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 90(2), pages 266-272.
    12. Richard Baldwin, 2005. "Heterogeneous Firms and Trade: Testable and Untestable Properties of the Melitz Model," NBER Working Papers 11471, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    13. Ehsan Choudhri & Antonio Marasco, 2013. "Heterogeneous Productivity and the Gains from Trade and FDI," Open Economies Review, Springer, vol. 24(2), pages 339-360, April.
    14. Svetlana Demidova, 2008. "Productivity Improvements And Falling Trade Costs: Boon Or Bane?," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 49(4), pages 1437-1462, November.
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    Cited by:

    1. Ehsan U. Choudhri & Antonio Marasco, 2017. "Is Foreign Technological Advance Harmful in the Melitz Model?," Open Economies Review, Springer, vol. 28(1), pages 149-166, February.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Heterogeneous Firms; Technological Change; Gains from Trade; Nontraded Goods;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • F10 - International Economics - - Trade - - - General
    • F12 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Models of Trade with Imperfect Competition and Scale Economies; Fragmentation

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