THE TIP OF THE ICEBERG: A QUANTITATIVE FRAMEWORK FOR ESTIMATING TRADE COSTS

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Irarrazabal, Alfonso; Moxnes, Andreas; Opromolla, Luca David
• 署名单位: BI Norwegian Business School; Norges Bank; University of Oslo; Leibniz Association; Ifo Institut
• 刊物名称: REVIEW OF ECONOMICS AND STATISTICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0034-6535
• DOI: 10.1162/REST_a_00517
• 发表日期: 2015-10
• 页码: 777-792
• 关键词: INTERNATIONAL-TRADE; LIBERALIZATION; margins; gravity

摘要

Trade costs are often additive. Well-known examples are quotas, per unit tariffs, and, in part, transportation costs. In spite of this, we have no broad and systematic evidence of the magnitude of these costs. In this paper, we develop a new empirical framework for estimating additive trade costs from standard firm-level trade data. Our results suggest that additive barriers are on average 14%, expressed relative to the median price. The point estimates are strongly correlated with common proxies for trade costs. Using our microestimates, we show that an additive import tariff reduces welfare and trade by more than an equal-yield multiplicative tariff.