The data contain intra-industry trade whereas the model is a pure Ricardian model. In this section I outline an alternative approach that converts the measurement of product units in the model to the product units in the data. Suppose that the true level of disaggregation of Ricardian products, as defined in theEaton and Kortum(2002) (EK) model, is unobserved and the classification scheme measures only an aggregate of those Ricardian products. For example, when products, in the sense of the EK model, arrive at the border, customs agents aggregate those products into an industry according to the HS classification standard. The number of EK products that customs agents assign to an HS industry classification is unobserved to the researcher. Given this interpretation, I model the classification process as a randomization device following a Poisson process with parameterµ.
The parameter µ informs on how many EK Ricardian products, on average, make up one HS code (the observed product unit in the data).
To estimate the Poisson parameter, I proceed as follows. According to the law of large numbers, the probability of importing a particular EK product equals the share of the number of EK products imported with respect to the total number of EK products. In the model, the probability that an EK product is imported equals P(impEKprod) = 1 Dii, where Dii is the probability of not importing
an EK product. The probability of not importing any EK product within an HS code is Diiµ, where µ is the average number of products that comprise an HS code. As a result, we get the probability of importing an HS code (product unit in data), which corresponds to one minus the probability of not importing any EK products in that industry, P(impHScode) = 1 Diiµ. Since the probability of
importing a product equals the share of products imported, NM/N, we can use the definition of the
Theil index on the extensive margin,
Tibm = ln(NM/N) = ln 1 Dµii to obtainµ: µi = ln 1 exp( T bm i ) ln(Dii) !
We compute the Poisson parameter for each country and take the average value as our estimate of ˆ
µ =1/IÂiI=1µi. The results imply that, on average, ˆµ =0.94 EK products correspond to an HS code.
code.
Empirical evidence and simulation results
In my simulation the total number of intermediate goods (N) is the product of the 4,529 industries in the data times 0.94, the average number of products in an industry,N =4, 258. One advantage of
the this approach is that we can make use of the full data sample and do not lose 35 percent of trade flows when converting the data into net trade flows. Next, I present the empirical results for the full sample together with the corresponding simulation results that replicate the data.
Figure??shows that, in general, the pattern of export and import concentration in the full sample is similar to the pattern in the net trade flow sample. Exports are more concentrated than imports for
Table 10: Mean concentration indexes for gross trade flows over 2210 country-year pairs
Gini Theil Exports (X) Theil Imports (M)
Exports Imports Extensive Intensive Total Extensive Intensive Total
Margin Margin Margin Margin
Level of 0.96 0.89 1.81 2.59 4.40 0.94 1.76 2.70 concentration % share of total 41% 59% 34% 66% concentration Correlation 0.98 0.87 0.96 0.45 0.87 0.98 0.82 0.90
with net trade
almost all countries and on all margins. The pattern on the extensive margin is displayed in Figure
??. Figure??shows the patterns on the intensive margin.
Regarding the quantitative differences, we observe that the overall level of concentration decreases with respect to the net trade flow sample for both exports and imports. The decomposition reveals that the effects differ across the margins. In the case of the extensive margin, concentration decreases with respect to the net trade flow sample whereas intensive margin concentration increases, thus reversing the relative importance of each margin in terms of overall export concentration. Intra- industry trade increases the number of products traded and the sales value of those products. As a result, we observe a lower (higher) concentration index on the extensive (intensive) margins. The overall concentration index is primarily driven by the intensive margin with a share of 59% for ex- ports and 66% for imports (see Table 11).
Table 11: Simulated concentration level with Poisson parameterµ=0.94 and exporter fixed effect
Gini Theil Exports (X) Theil Imports (M)
Exports Imports Extensive Intensive Total Extensive Intensive Total
Model Margin Margin Margin Margin
Simulation 0.99 0.89 4.97 3.32 8.29 1.15 1.76 2.91
60% 40% 39% 61%
Data (gross trade flows) 0.96 0.89 1.81 2.59 4.40 0.94 1.76 2.70
41% 59% 34% 66%
Data (net trade flows) 0.98 0.91 2.60 2.13 4.73 1.10 1.61 2.71
Using data on gross trade flows, I re-estimate trade cost and technology parameters. I then simulate the model, calculate the resulting concentration indexes using the Poisson measurement device and
compare the simulated results with the data. Table 11 shows the results. Export concentration is higher than import concentration on all margins. With respect to decomposition, in a similar way to the net trade case, the extensive margin dominates overall concentration for exports and the intensive margin dominates for imports. The concentration levels obtained for imports are close to the one in the data. In the case of exports, simulated concentration levels are too high. In terms of the cross-country concentration pattern, the calibrated model fits the data well, particularly for exports. However, like the net trade results, the model cannot capture the negative relationship between import concentration and GDP.
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