Firm size, quality bias and import demand

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Blaum, Joaquin; Lelarge, Claire; Peters, Michael
• 署名单位: Brown University; Universite Paris Saclay; Institut Polytechnique de Paris; ENSAE Paris; Yale University; Centre for Economic Policy Research - UK; National Bureau of Economic Research
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0022-1996
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jinteco.2019.04.004
• 发表日期: 2019
• 页码: 59-83
• 关键词: Trade in intermediate inputs; firm heterogeneity; firm size; Non-homothetic import demand; Quality-productivity complementarity

摘要

Commonly used firm-based models of importing imply that firm productivity should have no effect on the allocation of expenditure across a common set of sourcing countries. Using French data, we show that this homotheticity property is soundly rejected: larger firms concentrate their import spending on their top varieties, holding the sourcing strategy fixed. To rationalize this finding, we propose a novel model of importing that features (i) a complementarity between firm productivity and input quality and (ii) heterogeneity across countries in their ability to produce high quality inputs. This model implies that large firms bias their spending towards countries with a comparative advantage in producing high quality inputs and hence generates a non-homothetic import demand system. We provide empirical support for this and other predictions of this theory. (C) 2019 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.