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The sources and magnitudes of Switzerland’s gains from trade

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  • Christian Hepenstrick

Abstract

This paper adapts the modern workhorse model of quantitative trade theory (Eaton and Kortum, 2002) as a measurement tool to quantify the magnitudes of Switzerland’s gains from trade. I find that the importance of single trading partners for Switzerland’s welfare is surprisingly small. The reason are reallocation effects - if trade between Switzerland and some partner country is inhibited, other supplier countries step into the breach so that the losses are limited. However, if one considers groups of countries, for example the EU, the welfare effects become large. In terms of policy this implies that whereas bilateral trade agreements may be important for particular industries per se, their relevance lies primarily in ensuring that the Swiss trade costs remain constant relative to trade costs within large trading blocks.

Suggested Citation

  • Christian Hepenstrick, 2011. "The sources and magnitudes of Switzerland’s gains from trade," ECON - Working Papers 006, Department of Economics - University of Zurich.
    • Handle: RePEc:zur:econwp:006
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

    1. Laurence Wicht, 2019. "The impact of trade tensions on Switzerland: A quantitative assessment," Aussenwirtschaft, University of St. Gallen, School of Economics and Political Science, Swiss Institute for International Economics and Applied Economics Research, vol. 70(01), pages 1-34, December.
    2. 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.
    3. 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.
    4. Dr. Laurence Wicht, 2020. "A multi-sector analysis of Switzerland's gains from trade," Working Papers 2020-20, Swiss National Bank.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Gains from trade; Switzerland; development accounting;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • F10 - International Economics - - Trade - - - General
    • F11 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Neoclassical Models of Trade
    • F14 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Empirical Studies of Trade

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