TY - JOUR AU - Baldwin,Richard E. TI - On the Growth Effects of Import Competition JF - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series VL - No. 4045 PY - 1992 Y2 - April 1992 UR - http://www.nber.org/papers/w4045 L1 - http://www.nber.org/papers/w4045.pdf N1 - Author contact info: Richard Baldwin Cigale 2 1010 Lausanne SWITZERLAND Tel: 41-22-908-5900 E-Mail: rbaldwin@cepr.org AB - This paper shows that the market structure of an economy's research sector is an important determinant of the aggregate growth rate, even though it has hereto been ignored in the new growth literature. To make this point in a concrete context, a simple model is used to show that import competition may stimulate growth by reducing the market power of domestic innovators. Specifically, import competition forces domestic innovators to chose between either quickening their pace of innovation or being displaced by foreign innovators. The pro-growth effect of import competition is shown to be welfare-increasing. The paper studies a number of policy implications including the growth effects of anti-trust policy, partial liberalization and trade in intellectual property rights. ER -