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International Trade, Empirical Approaches to

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Abstract

This article reviews empirical research in international trade, which has undergone a resurgence since the mid-1980s. The article begins with traditional trade empirics, in which cross-country differences in opportunity costs of production (comparative advantage) are the basis for trade, before turning to new trade empirics, in which consumer love of variety and increasing returns to scale give rise to trade in similar goods between similar countries. More recent empirical research has emphasized heterogeneity across products within industries and across individual plants and firms, while other recent work has focused on the political economy of trade policy.

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  1. http://link.springer.com/referencework/10.1057/978-1-349-95189-5

    Stephen J. Redding

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Redding, S.J. (2018). International Trade, Empirical Approaches to. In: The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-349-95189-5_2647

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