Specialization and the Volume of Trade: Do the Data Obey the Laws? / James Harrigan.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Harrigan, James.

Contributor:

National Bureau of Economic Research.

Series:

Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research) no. w8675.

NBER working paper series no. w8675

Language:

English

Physical Description:

1 online resource: illustrations (black and white);

Other Title:

Specialization and the Volume of Trade

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research 2001.

Summary:

The core subjects of trade theory are the pattern and volume of trade: which goods are traded by which countries, and how much of those goods are traded. The first part of the paper discusses evidence on comparative advantage, with an emphasis on carefully connecting theory models to data analyses. The second part of the chapter first considers the theoretical foundations of the gravity model, and then reviews the small number of papers that have tried to test, rather than simply use, the implications of gravity. Both parts of the paper yield the same conclusion: we are still in the very early stages of empirically understanding specialization and the volume of trade, but the work that has been done can serve as a starting point for further research.

Notes:

Print version record

December 2001.