Models with constant-elasticity of substitution (CES) preferences are commonly employed in the international trade literature because they provide a tractable way to handle product differentiation in general equilibrium. However this tractability comes at the cost of generating a set of...

Developing countries pay substantially higher transportation costs than developed nations, which leads to less trade and perhaps lower incomes. This paper investigates price discrimination in the shipping industry and the role it plays in determining transportation costs. In the presence of...

This thesis includes three essays. Essay 1 extends the Dixit-Stiglitz (1977) model of monopolistic competition by relaxing the assumption of a single technology. The main objective is to study whether the equivalence of the monopolistically competitive equilibrium to the social optimum still...

We examine international markups and pricing in a generalized version of an "ideal variety" model. In this model, entry causes crowding in variety space, so that the marginal utility of new varieties falls as market size grows. Crowding is partially offset by income effects, as richer consumers...

Data on transportation costs are difficult to obtain. In the absence of good data, many researchers have turned to indirect measures of transportation costs constructed using matched partner c.i.f./f.o.b. ratios from IMF and UN data. We investigate whether these data are usable, by comparing...

Developing countries pay substantially higher transportation costs than developed nations, which leads to less trade and perhaps lower incomes. This paper investigates price discrimination in the shipping industry and the role it plays in determining transportation costs. In the presence of...