On the Measurement of Intra-Industry Trade

Datos Bibliográficos

ID9718326
AutoresDavid Greenaway (University of Buckingham), Chris Milner (0000-0002-3061-8173, Loughborough University)
Año1983
Volumen93
Número372
Páginas900
Fecha de publicación1983-12-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessNo
TipoARTICLE
RevistaThe Economic Journal (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0013-0133 • E-ISSN: 1468-0297
EditorialOxford University Press (OUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.2307/2232755
OpenAlexW2094641311
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas9
Referencias citadas1

countries (or more specifically newly industrialising countries) increased in importance as exporters of manufactures over this period, some 6o % of the overall expansion of trade in manufactures comprised trade within Western Europe and North America.' A phenomenon which appears to have increased in importance as a consequence of the growth of trade between manufacturing nations is intra-industry trade, i.e. the simultaneous import and export of commodities classified in the same 'industry' or product group. Although there are considerable difficulties associated with the computation of a meaningful summary statistic of the importance of intra-industry trade, relative to total trade, a substantial amount of evidence now exists to suggest that intra-industry trade has increased in importance to the point where it may account for in excess of 6o % of total trade in most developed market economies.2 Intra-industry trade is important for at least two reasons. First, accurate measurement of pure intra-industry trade can give some indication of the importance of determinants of international exchange other than relative factor proportions. Recent work has, for example, emphasised the role of preference diversity and decreasing costs. Despite attempts to generalise the HeckscherOhlin model, neither of these factors can be comfortably accommodated. Consequently, the Heckscher-Ohlin postulate (that countries specialise in and export commodities which use their abundant factor intensively) is of little value in explaining intra-industry exchange. Secondly, there is a possibility that adjustment to trade expansion may be easier when the expansion takes the form of an increase in intra- as opposed to inter-industry exchange.3 In order to explore either of these issues empirically or to test any of the models of intraindustry exchange which have emerged in recent years,4 intra-industry trade has to be measured as accurately as possible. The principal complication with measurement is the unknown influence of categorical aggregation. This paper discusses alternative approaches to assessing the influence of categorical aggre

Economics · International economics · International trade · Intra-industry trade · Trade barrier · Economic Growth and Productivity · Global Trade and Competitiveness · Global trade and economics