Markups, quality, and trade costs

A-Tier
Journal: Journal of International Economics
Year: 2022
Volume: 137
Issue: C

Authors (2)

Score contribution per author:

2.011 = (α=2.01 / 2 authors) × 2.0x A-tier

α: calibrated so average coauthorship-adjusted count equals average raw count

Abstract

This paper examines how trade costs induced by geographic distance or bilateral tariffs impact the markups of exports differentiated by quality. It relies on a data set that combines Argentinean firm-level wine exports with experts’ wine ratings as a measure of quality. Exporters price discriminate across destinations by raising markups in more distant markets, and by lowering them in high-tariff countries. However, the response of markups to changes in trade costs is heterogeneous and weaker for higher quality exports. These empirical patterns can be predicted by trade models featuring demand functions more convex than log-concave, but less than superconvex. They demonstrate that the variation in firm-level export unit values across markets is not only driven by quality differences but also by markup variation conditional on quality.

Technical Details

RePEc Handle
repec:eee:inecon:v:137:y:2022:i:c:s0022199622000599
Journal Field
International
Author Count
2
Added to Database
2026-01-25