IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/wap/wpaper/2419.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Product Variety and Quality in Trade Dynamics

Author

Listed:
  • Masashige Hamano

    (Waseda University)

Abstract

This paper documents that product quality in international trade is negatively correlated with the number of traded varieties in global data. We account for this substitutability between trade variety and quality by developing a two-country international business cycle model with heterogeneous firms that endogenously determine product quality while entering and exiting export markets. Our theoretical model successfully replicates the wedge-shaped pattern of cross-correlations between the number of product varieties and the quality of trade, along with key statistics on U.S. trade dynamics.

Suggested Citation

  • Masashige Hamano, 2025. "Product Variety and Quality in Trade Dynamics," Working Papers 2419, Waseda University, Faculty of Political Science and Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:wap:wpaper:2419
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.waseda.jp/fpse/winpec/assets/uploads/2025/02/698b879afbba26453bf8f1d660ef3780.pdf
    File Function: First version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. repec:clu:wpaper:0708-12 is not listed on IDEAS
    2. Fabio Ghironi & Marc J. Melitz, 2005. "International Trade and Macroeconomic Dynamics with Heterogeneous Firms," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 120(3), pages 865-915.
    3. Heathcote, Jonathan & Perri, Fabrizio, 2002. "Financial autarky and international business cycles," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(3), pages 601-627, April.
    4. Naknoi, Kanda, 2015. "Exchange rate volatility and fluctuations in the extensive margin of trade," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 52(C), pages 322-339.
    5. 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.
    6. Maurice Kugler & Eric Verhoogen, 2012. "Prices, Plant Size, and Product Quality," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 79(1), pages 307-339.
    7. Engel, Charles & Wang, Jian, 2011. "International trade in durable goods: Understanding volatility, cyclicality, and elasticities," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 83(1), pages 37-52, January.
    8. Hallak, Juan Carlos, 2006. "Product quality and the direction of trade," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 68(1), pages 238-265, January.
    9. Antoine Gervais, 2015. "Product quality and firm heterogeneity in international trade," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 48(3), pages 1152-1174, August.
    10. 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.
    11. Amit Khandelwal, 2010. "The Long and Short (of) Quality Ladders," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 77(4), pages 1450-1476.
    12. Antoine Gervais, 2015. "Product quality, firm heterogeneity and trade liberalization," The Journal of International Trade & Economic Development, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 24(4), pages 523-541, June.
    13. Fabio Ghironi & Marc J. Melitz, 2007. "Trade Flow Dynamics with Heterogeneous Firms," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 97(2), pages 356-361, May.
    14. Juan Carlos Hallak & Peter K. Schott, 2011. "Estimating Cross-Country Differences in Product Quality," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 126(1), pages 417-474.
    15. Marta Arespa & Diego Gruber, 2021. "Product Quality and International Price Dynamics over the Business Cycle," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 88(352), pages 1054-1074, October.
    16. Ha Thi Thanh Doan & Hongyong Zhang, 2024. "Technical barriers to trade, product quality and trade margins: firm-level evidence," Review of World Economics (Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv), Springer;Institut für Weltwirtschaft (Kiel Institute for the World Economy), vol. 160(3), pages 785-811, August.
    17. Backus, David K & Kehoe, Patrick J & Kydland, Finn E, 1992. "International Real Business Cycles," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 100(4), pages 745-775, August.
    18. Robert C. Feenstra & John Romalis, 2014. "International Prices and Endogenous Quality," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 129(2), pages 477-527.
    19. Peter K. Schott, 2004. "Across-Product Versus Within-Product Specialization in International Trade," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 119(2), pages 647-678.
    20. Christian Broda & David W. Weinstein, 2004. "Variety Growth and World Welfare," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 94(2), pages 139-144, May.
    21. Masashige Hamano & Francesco Zanetti, 2018. "On Quality and Variety Bias in Aggregate Prices," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 50(6), pages 1343-1363, September.
    22. Antoniades, Alexis, 2015. "Heterogeneous Firms, Quality, and Trade," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 95(2), pages 263-273.
    23. Gloria Sheu, 2014. "Price, Quality, and Variety: Measuring the Gains from Trade in Differentiated Products," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 6(4), pages 66-89, October.
    24. Johnson, Robert C., 2012. "Trade and prices with heterogeneous firms," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 86(1), pages 43-56.
    25. 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.
    26. Hamano, Masashige, 2022. "International risk sharing with heterogeneous firms," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 120(C).
    27. David Hummels & Peter J. Klenow, 2005. "The Variety and Quality of a Nation's Exports," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(3), pages 704-723, June.
    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. Masashige Hamano, 2013. "On business cycles of variety and quality," DEM Discussion Paper Series 13-21, Department of Economics at the University of Luxembourg.
    2. Sofia Anyfantaki & Sarantis Kalyvitis & Margarita Katsimi & Eirini Thomaidou, 2018. "Export pricing at the firm level with panel data," Working Papers 241, Bank of Greece.
    3. Adriana Peluffo & Juan Ignacio Scasso, 2016. "Destination and source countries: Do they have a role on product quality?," Documentos de Trabajo (working papers) 16-10, Instituto de Economía - IECON.
    4. Alcalá, Francisco, 2016. "Specialization across goods and export quality," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 98(C), pages 216-232.
    5. Jennie Bai & Jia Guo & Benjamin R. Mandel, 2013. "Going global: markups and product quality in the Chinese art market," Staff Reports 614, Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
    6. Brambilla, Irene & Porto, Guido G., 2016. "High-income export destinations, quality and wages," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 98(C), pages 21-35.
    7. Chen, Natalie & Juvenal, Luciana, 2016. "Quality, trade, and exchange rate pass-through," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 100(C), pages 61-80.
    8. Peluffo Adriana & Scasso Juan, 2023. "The Role of Trade Partners on Product Quality: The case of Uruguay," Asociación Argentina de Economía Política: Working Papers 4681, Asociación Argentina de Economía Política.
    9. Crinò, Rosario & Ogliari, Laura, 2017. "Financial imperfections, product quality, and international trade," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 104(C), pages 63-84.
    10. Masashige Hamano & Francesco Zanetti, 2018. "On Quality and Variety Bias in Aggregate Prices," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 50(6), pages 1343-1363, September.
    11. Crinò, Rosario & Ogliari, Laura, 2015. "Financial Frictions, Product Quality, and International Trade," CEPR Discussion Papers 10555, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    12. Raphael A. Auer, 2013. "Product Heterogeneity, Cross-Country Taste Differences, and the Consumption Home Bias," Working Papers 13.01, Swiss National Bank, Study Center Gerzensee.
    13. Chen, Natalie & Juvenal, Luciana, 2018. "Quality and the Great Trade Collapse," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 135(C), pages 59-76.
    14. Sarantis Kalyvitis, 2015. "Who exports high-quality products? Some empirical regularities from Greek exporting firms," Working Papers 201, Bank of Greece.
    15. Sergei Kichko & Alina Ozhegova & Alexander Tarasov, 2024. "Quality Distortions in Monopolistic Competition," CESifo Working Paper Series 11472, CESifo.
    16. Chen, Natalie & Juvenal, Luciana, 2022. "Markups, quality, and trade costs," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 137(C).
    17. Freitag, Andreas & Lein, Sarah M., 2023. "Endogenous product adjustment and exchange rate pass-through," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 140(C).
    18. Choi, ByeongHwa, 2023. "The impact of financial development on innovation-based exports: Do all firms benefit equally?," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 88(C), pages 81-100.
    19. Antoniades, Alexis, 2015. "Heterogeneous Firms, Quality, and Trade," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 95(2), pages 263-273.
    20. Lugovskyy, Volodymyr & Skiba, Alexandre, 2016. "Positive and negative effects of distance on export prices," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 127(C), pages 155-181.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    business cycle; product variety; product quality; firm heterogeneity;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • F12 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Models of Trade with Imperfect Competition and Scale Economies; Fragmentation
    • F41 - International Economics - - Macroeconomic Aspects of International Trade and Finance - - - Open Economy Macroeconomics
    • F43 - International Economics - - Macroeconomic Aspects of International Trade and Finance - - - Economic Growth of Open Economies

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:wap:wpaper:2419. 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: Haruko Noguchi (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/spwasjp.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.