The Use of Literature Based Elasticity Estimates in Calibrated Models of Trade-Wage Decompositions: A Calibmetric Approach

How to best utilize the wide range of estimates of elasticities that characterize econometric literature when using calibrated models is the issue we address here through a blending of econometrics and calibration into calibmetrics. Econometrically generated literature based elasticity parameters are typically used in calibrated models a very simple manner, appealing to a single value. Here we explicitly incorporate the full range of values of elasticities yielded by econometric studies in both the calibration procedure employed and the uses made of a calibrated model. This is important because the ranges for such values can be large. This allows us to assess how uncertainty in exogenously specified parameter values affects the performance of calibrated models, and how much added information is obtained by using the full range of literature estimates of key parameters in calibration.