Demand Uncertainty, Selection, and Trade

• 成果类型: Article; Early Access
• 署名作者: Sager, Erick; Timoshenko, Olga A.
• 署名单位: Federal Reserve System - USA; Federal Reserve System Board of Governors; Pennsylvania Commonwealth System of Higher Education (PCSHE); Temple University
• 刊物名称: INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC REVIEW
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0020-6598
• DOI: 10.1111/iere.70110
• 发表日期: 2026
• 关键词: Export prices; firm; PRODUCTIVITY; elasticity; welfare

摘要

This paper examines the effect of idiosyncratic uncertainty on trade elasticities in a canonical heterogeneous-firm model. We identify two channels through which uncertainty affects elasticities: a selection effect, whereby uncertainty lowers export participation thresholds and a dispersion effect, whereby uncertainty lowers the dispersion of export selection shocks, with an ambiguous impact on elasticities. We develop a methodology to quantify trade elasticities under uncertainty and apply it to Brazilian firm-level export data. Relative to a complete-information framework, uncertainty amplifies trade elasticities on average, with heterogeneous effects across industries that are largest among highly substitutable and high-uncertainty products.