There is strong evidence that different income groups consume different bundles of goods. This evidence suggests that trade liberalization can affect welfare inequality within a country via changes in the relative prices of goods consumed by different income groups (the price effect). In this...

The normative analysis of monopolistic competition models of trade suggests that even for a small country a small tariff is welfare improving [Gros (1987) and Helpman and Krugman (1989, ch. 7)]. This note introduces a consumption-leisure trade-off to endogenize labor supply resulting in...

Recent empirical evidence suggests that prices for some goods and services are higher in larger markets. This paper provides a demand-side explanation for this phenomenon when firms can choose how much to differentiate their products in a model of monopolistic competition with horizontal product...

Recent empirical evidence suggests that prices for some goods and services are higher in larger markets. This paper provides a demand-side explanation for this phenomenon when firms can choose how much to differentiate their products in a model of monopolistic competition with horizontal product...

We compare trade liberalization under Cournot and Bertrand competition in reciprocal markets. In both cases, the critical level of trade costs below which the possibility of trade affects the domestic firm’s behavior is the same; trade liberalization increases trade volume monotonically; and...

The European Union and Japan have recently launched negotiations about a bilateral free trade agreement as means of economic stimulation, with trade as a driving force to create growth and wealth. Since customs duties are already low, the success of the liberalization process hinges on the...

We consider an international cartel whose members interact repeatedly in their own as well as in third-country segmented markets. Cartel discipline-an inverse measure of the degree of competition between firms-is endogenously determined by the cartel’s incentive compatibility constraint (ICC),...

We derive a simple equation for the welfare gains from trade when tariffs are liberalized or iceberg trade costs fall. Covering various one-sector trade models that may or may not feature extensive margins and imperfect competition, we generalize the analysis of Arkolakis, Costinot and...

This paper studies the market and welfare effects of income heterogeneity in monopolistically competitive product markets in the context of nonhomothetic preferences. In a closed economy, where richer individuals' expenditures are less sensitive to price change compared to poorer ones', a...

We build a two-country model with an international duopoly and capital-market integration. We examine how the convergence of the cost of capital, due to its mobility, affects the welfare of each country and their joint welfare. We find that international capital mobility, which equalizes the...