Distribution of Consumption, Production and Trade within the U.S.

This paper attempts to determine the main motivation behind intranational and international trade by introducing a model that considers the distributions of production and consumption within the U.S. at the industry level. On the consumption side, industry- and state-specific international imports and elasticities of substitution are shown to be systematically connected to consumption agglomeration effects, while on the production side, industry- and state-specific international exports and intermediate input trade are shown to be systematically connected to production agglomeration and specialization effects. Industry structures also play an important role in the determination and magnitude of these effects.