Globalization and the gains from variety
By: Christian Broda, David E. Weinstein.
Contributors: Weinstein, David E.; National Bureau of Economic Research.
Series: NBER working paper series ;; working paper 10314; Working paper series (National Bureau of Economic Research : Online) ;; working paper no. 10314.
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research
Published: 2004
Place of publication: Cambridge, MA
Language: eng
Format: Electronic resource
Subjects: Globalization.; Imports -- United States.; New products.
Description: "Since the seminal work of Krugman (1979), product variety has played a central role in models of trade and growth.  In spite of the general use of love-of-variety models, there has been no systematic study of how the import of new varieties has contributed to national welfare gains in the United States.  In this paper we show that the unmeasured growth in product variety from US imports has been an important source of gains from trade over the last three decades (1972-2001).  Using extremely disaggregated data, we show that the number of imported product varieties has increased by a factor of four.  We also estimate the elasticities of substitution for each available category at the same level of aggregation, and describe their behavior across time and SITC-5 industries.  Using these estimates we develop an exact price index and find that the upward bias in the conventional import price index is approximately 1.2 percent per year.  The magnitude of this bias suggests that the welfare gains from variety growth in imports alone are 2.8 percent of GDP"--National Bureau of Economic Research web site.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references.
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