Trade barriers and trade flows with product heterogeneity: An application to US motion picture exports

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Hanson, Gordon; Xiang, Chong
• 署名单位: University of California System; University of California San Diego; Purdue University System; Purdue University; National Bureau of Economic Research
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0022-1996
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jinteco.2010.10.007
• 发表日期: 2011
• 页码: 14-26
• 关键词: Product heterogeneity; Motion pictures; Fixed export costs

摘要

We extend Melitz (2003) to allow for both global and bilateral fixed export costs. If global (bilateral) export costs dominate, the average sales ratio (import sales per product variety/domestic sales per variety), decreases (increases) in variable (fixed) trade barriers, due to adjustment along the intensive (extensive) margin of trade. Using novel data on bilateral US movie exports we find that (i) variation in box-office revenues per movie is much larger than in the number of movies exported, and (ii) the average sales ratio decreases in geographic and linguistic distance. These findings suggest that global fixed export costs dominate. (C) 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.