TY  - JOUR
AU  - Atkeson,Andrew
AU  - Burstein,Ariel
TI  - Innovation, firm dynamics, and international trade
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 13326
PY  - 2007
Y2  - August 2007
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w13326
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w13326.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Andrew Atkeson
Bunche Hall 9381
Department of Economics
UCLA
Box 951477
Los Angeles, CA  90095-1477
Tel: 866/312-9770
Fax: 310/825-9528
E-Mail: andy@atkeson.net

Ariel Burstein
Department of Economics
Bunche Hall 8365
Box 951477
UCLA
Los Angeles, CA 90095-1477
Tel: 310/206-6732
Fax: 310/825-9528
E-Mail: arielb@econ.ucla.edu
AB  - We present a general equilibrium model of the decisions of firms to innovate and to engage in international trade. We use the model to analyze the impact of a reduction in international trade costs on firms' process and product innovative activity. We first show analytically that if all firms export with equal intensity, then a reduction in international trade costs has no impact at all, in steady-state, on firms' investments in process innovation. We then show that if only a subset of firms export, a decline in marginal trade costs raises process innovation in exporting firms relative to that of non-exporting firms. This reallocation of process innovation reinforces existing patterns of comparative advantage, and leads to an amplified response of trade volumes and output over time. In a quantitative version of the model, we show that the increase in process innovation is largely offset by a decline in product innovation. We find that, even if process innovation is very elastic and leads to a large dynamic response of trade, output, consumption, and the firm size distribution, the dynamic welfare gains are very similar to those in a model with inelastic process innovation.
ER  -