Elhanan Helpman
Biographic Data
| ID | 976681 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Elhanan Helpman |
| GIVEN NAMES | Elhanan |
| FAMILY NAME | Helpman |
| SIGNATURE | HELPMAN E |
| AFFILIATIONS | Canadian Institute for Advanced Research |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 48 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 531 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 47 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 1 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1977 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2023 |
| H-INDEX | 11 |
Electoral competition with fake news
Supply Chain Resilience: Should Policy Promote International Diversification or Reshoring
Little is known about optimal policy in the face of global supply chain disruptions. Should governments promote resilience by subsidizing backup sources of input supply in multiple countries? Should they encourage firms to source from safer domestic suppliers? We address these questions in a model of production with a critical input and exogenous risks of supply disturbances. With constant elasticity of substitution preferences, a subsidy for div…
Handbook of International Economics
Globalization and Inequality
Globalization is not the primary cause of rising inequality. That is the conclusion of this penetrating study by Elhanan Helpman, a leading expert on international trade. If we wish to curb inequality while protecting what is best about globalization, he shows, we must start with a clear view of how globalization does, and does not, shape our world.
Trade and Inequality: From Theory to Estimation
While neoclassical theory emphasizes the impact of trade on wage inequality between occupations and sectors, more recent theories of firm heterogeneity point to the impact of trade on wage dispersion within occupations and sectors. Using linked employer–employee data for Brazil, we show that much of overall wage inequality arises within sector–occupations and for workers with similar observable characteristics; this within component is driven by …
Matching, Sorting, and the Distributional Effects of International Trade
Electronically published December 16, 2016
Handbook of International Economics
Foreign Trade and Investment: Firm‐level Perspectives
This Economica Coase Lecture reviews research that has revolutionized the field of international trade and foreign direct investment. It explains the motivation behind the development of new analytical frameworks, the nature of these frameworks, and the empirical studies that sprouted from them
Income Distribution, Product Quality, and International Trade
We develop a framework for studying trade in vertically and horizontally differentiated products. In our model, consumers with heterogeneous incomes and tastes purchase a homogeneous good as well as making a discrete choice of quality and variety of a differentiated product. The distribution of preferences in the population generates a nested logit demand structure. These demands are such that the fraction of consumers who buy a higher-quality pr…
International R&D spillovers and institutions
Estimating Trade Flows: Trading Partners and Trading Volumes
We develop a simple model of international trade with heterogeneous firms that is consistent with a number of stylized features of the data. In particular, the model predicts positive as well as zero trade flows across pairs of countries, and it allows the number of exporting firms to vary across destination countries. As a result, the impact of trade frictions on trade flows can be decomposed into the intensive and extensive margins, where the f…
Institutions and Economic Performance
Preface * Introduction Part One: History * The Impact of Administrative Power on Political and Economic Developments: Toward a Political Economy of Implementation Avner Greif * The Institutional Origins of the Industrial Revolution Joel Mokyr * Institutions and the Resource Curse in Early Modern Spain Mauricio Drelichman and Hans-Joachim Voth * Slavery, Inequality, and Economic Development in the Americas: An Examination of the Engerman-Sokoloff …
Trade, FDI, and the Organization of Firms
New developments in the world economy have triggered research designed to better understand the changes in trade and investment patterns, and the reorganization of production across national borders. Although traditional trade theory has much to offer in explaining parts of this puzzle, other parts required new approaches. Particularly acute has been the need to model alternative forms of involvement of business firms in foreign activities becaus…
Outsourcing in a Global Economy
We study the determinants of the location of subcontracted activity in a general equilibrium model of outsourcing and trade. We model outsourcing as an activity that requires search for a partner and relationship-specific investments that are governed by incomplete contracts. The extent of international outsourcing depends inter alia on the thickness of the domestic and foreign market for input suppliers, the relative cost of searching in each ma…
The Mystery of Economic Growth
Export Versus FDI with Heterogeneous Firms
Multinational sales have grown at high rates over the last two decades, outpacing the remark-able expansion of trade in manufactures. Con-sequently, the trade literature has sought to incorporate the mode of foreign market access into the “new ” trade theory. This literature rec-ognizes that firms can serve foreign buyers through a variety of channels: they can export their products to foreign customers, serve them through foreign subsidiaries, o…
Negotiating Free Trade
We develop a dynamic bargaining model in which a leading country endogenously decides whether to sequentially negotiate free trade agreements with subsets of countries or engage in simultaneous multilateral bargaining with all countries at once. We show how the structure of coalition externalities shapes the choice between sequential and multilateral bargaining, and we identify circumstances in which the grand coalition is the equilibrium outcome…
Global Sourcing
We present a North‐South model of international trade in which differentiated products are developed in the North. Sectors are populated by final‐good producers who differ in productivity levels. On the basis of productivity and sectoral characteristics, firms decide whether to integrate into the production of intermediate inputs or outsource them. In either case they have to decide from which country to source the inputs. Final‐good producers an…
Special Interest Politics
Special Interest Politics
Special Interest Politics
The Structure of Foreign Trade
During the last two decades, new research has greatly advanced the understanding of the structure of world trade. While research in the 1960s and 1970s provided mostly theoretical insights, major empirical innovations concerning the study of factor content of net trade flows appeared in the 1980s. Important improvements in this line of research were added in the 1990s. The author also discusses the literature that emphasizes economies of scale an…
Intergenerational Redistribution with Short‐lived Governments
Journal Article Intergenerational Redistribution with Short‐lived Governments Get access Gene Grossman, Gene Grossman Princeton University Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Elhanan Helpman Elhanan Helpman Harvard University, Tel Aviv University and CIAR Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The Economic Journal, Volume 108, Issue 450, 1 September 1998, Pages 1299–1329, http…
Common Agency and Coordination: General Theory and Application to Government Policy Making
The authors develop a model of common agency with complete information and general preferences with nontransferable utility, and they prove that the principals' Nash equilibrium in truthful strategies implements an efficient action. The authors apply this theory to the construction of a positive model of public finance, where organized special interests can lobby the government for consumer and producer taxes or subsidies and targeted lump-sum ta…
North-South R & D Spillovers
We examine the extent to which developing countries that do little, if any, research and development themselves benefit from R & D that is performed in the industrial countries. By trading with an industrial country that has a large `stock of knowledgé from its cumulative R & D activities, a developing country can boost its productivity by importing a larger variety of intermediate products and capital equipment embodying foreign knowledge, and b…
Electoral Competition and Special Interest Politics
We study the competition between two political parties for seats in a legislature. The parties have fixed positions on some issues, but vary their positions on others in order to attract votes and campaign contributions. In this context, we examine whether special interest groups are governed by an electoral motive or an influence in their campaign giving, and how their contributions affect the equilibrium platforms. We show that each party is in…
North-South R & D Spillovers
We examine the extent to which developing countries that do little, if any, research and development themselves benefit from R & D that is performed in the industrial countries. By trading with an industrial country that has a large `stock of knowledgé from its cumulative R & D activities, a developing country can boost its productivity by importing a larger variety of intermediate products and capital equipment embodying foreign knowledge, and b…
A Simple Theory of International Trade with Multinational Corporations
Using the idea that firm-specific assets associated with marketing, management, and product-specific R & D can be used to service production plants in countries other than the country in which these inputs are employed, I develop a simple general equilibrium model of international trade in which the location of plants in a differentiated product industry is a decision variable. The model is then used to derive predictions of trade pattern, volume…
Global Sourcing
We present a North‐South model of international trade in which differentiated products are developed in the North. Sectors are populated by final‐good producers who differ in productivity levels. On the basis of productivity and sectoral characteristics, firms decide whether to integrate into the production of intermediate inputs or outsource them. In either case they have to decide from which country to source the inputs. Final‐good producers an…
Common Agency and Coordination: General Theory and Application to Government Policy Making
The authors develop a model of common agency with complete information and general preferences with nontransferable utility, and they prove that the principals' Nash equilibrium in truthful strategies implements an efficient action. The authors apply this theory to the construction of a positive model of public finance, where organized special interests can lobby the government for consumer and producer taxes or subsidies and targeted lump-sum ta…
Endogenous Innovation in the Theory of Growth
This paper makes the case that purposive, profit-seeking investments in knowledge play a critical role in the long-run growth process. First, the authors review the implications of neoclassical growth theory and the more recent theories of 'endogenous growth.' Then they discuss the empirical evidence that bears on the modeling of long-run growth. Finally, the authors describe in more detail a model of growth based on endogenous technological prog…
The Mystery of Economic Growth
Income Distribution, Product Quality, and International Trade
We develop a framework for studying trade in vertically and horizontally differentiated products. In our model, consumers with heterogeneous incomes and tastes purchase a homogeneous good as well as making a discrete choice of quality and variety of a differentiated product. The distribution of preferences in the population generates a nested logit demand structure. These demands are such that the fraction of consumers who buy a higher-quality pr…
Market Structure and Foreign Trade: Increasing Returns, Imperfect Competition, and the International Economy
Journal Article Market Structure and Foreign Trade: Increasing Returns, Imperfect Competition, and the International Economy Get access Market Structure and Foreign Trade: Increasing Returns, Imperfect Competition, and the International Economy. By ELHANAN HELPMAN and PAUL R. KRUGMAN. (Brighton: Wheatsheaf, 1985. Distributed by Harvester Press. Pp. xii + 271. £25.00 hardback.) John Cantwell John Cantwell University of Reading Search for other wor…
Innovation and Growth in the Global Economy
Traditional growth theory emphasizes the incentives for capital accumulation rather than technological progress. Innovation is treated as an exogenous process or a by-product of investment in machinery and equipment. Grossman and Helpman develop a unique approach in which innovation is viewed as a deliberate outgrowth of investments in industrial research by forward-looking, profit-seeking agents
Endogenous Product Cycles
Journal Article Endogenous Product Cycles Get access Gene M. Grossman, Gene M. Grossman Princeton University Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Elhanan Helpman Elhanan Helpman Tel Aviv University Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The Economic Journal, Volume 101, Issue 408, 1 September 1991, Pages 1214–1229, https://doi.org/10.2307/2234437 Published: 01 September 1991
Trade Wars and Trade Talks
Whether governments clash in trade disputes or negotiate over trade agreements, their actions in the international arena reflect political conditions back home. Previous studies of cooperative and noncooperative trade relations have focused on governments that are immune from political pressures and that act as benevolent servants of the public interest. Here we take a first step toward introducing domestic politics into the analysis of internati…
Intergenerational Redistribution with Short‐lived Governments
Journal Article Intergenerational Redistribution with Short‐lived Governments Get access Gene Grossman, Gene Grossman Princeton University Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Elhanan Helpman Elhanan Helpman Harvard University, Tel Aviv University and CIAR Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The Economic Journal, Volume 108, Issue 450, 1 September 1998, Pages 1299–1329, http…
Foreign Trade and Investment: Firm‐level Perspectives
This Economica Coase Lecture reviews research that has revolutionized the field of international trade and foreign direct investment. It explains the motivation behind the development of new analytical frameworks, the nature of these frameworks, and the empirical studies that sprouted from them
The Structure of Foreign Trade
During the last two decades, new research has greatly advanced the understanding of the structure of world trade. While research in the 1960s and 1970s provided mostly theoretical insights, major empirical innovations concerning the study of factor content of net trade flows appeared in the 1980s. Important improvements in this line of research were added in the 1990s. The author also discusses the literature that emphasizes economies of scale an…
Supply Chain Resilience: Should Policy Promote International Diversification or Reshoring
Little is known about optimal policy in the face of global supply chain disruptions. Should governments promote resilience by subsidizing backup sources of input supply in multiple countries? Should they encourage firms to source from safer domestic suppliers? We address these questions in a model of production with a critical input and exogenous risks of supply disturbances. With constant elasticity of substitution preferences, a subsidy for div…
Product Development and International Trade
The authors develop a multicountry, dynamic general equilibrium model of product innovation and international trade to study the creation of comparative advantage through R$50D and the evolution of world trade over time. In their model, firms must incur resource costs to introduce new products, and forward-looking potential producers conduct R$50D and enter the product market whenever profit opportunities exist. Trade has both intraindustry and i…
An Exploration in the Theory of Exchange-Rate Regimes
Three exchange-rate regimes--a float, a one-sided peg, and a cooperative peg-are evaluated and compared in terms of efficiency and welfare levels. The framework of analysis embodies country-specific monies, with the money of each country being used to transact in its commodity markets and its currency-denominated bonds. Welfare levels depend only on consumption levels. In the presence of perfect foresight all equilibrium allocations are Pareto ef…
Matching, Sorting, and the Distributional Effects of International Trade
Electronically published December 16, 2016
Dynamics of a Floating Exchange Rate Regime
We study the full equilibrium dynamics of a two-country world economy with a floating exchange rate, traded and nontraded goods, and explicit modeling of the use of money. The resulting exchange rate equation depends on several details of the economic structure, such as the supply structure and propensities to spend on various goods. Although real exchange rate movements have the usual association with the current account, the ordinary exchange r…
Trade Policy and Market Structure
Macroeconomic Effects of Price Controls: The Role of Market Structure
Demand and Price Analysis, Marketing
A Theory of International Trade Under Uncertainty
Journal Article Theory of International Trade Under Uncertainty Get access Theory of International Trade Under Uncertainty. By ELHANAN HELPMAN and ASSAF RAZIN. (London: Academic Press, 1978. Pp. xii + 185. £12.35.) Theodore Hitiris Theodore Hitiris University of York Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The Economic Journal, Volume 90, Issue 357, 1 March 1980, Pages 185–187, https://doi.org/10.2307/2231674 Publ…
Two Remarks on Optimal Club Size
Two Remarks on Optimal Club Size
The Protective Effect of a Tariff under Uncertainty
We examine the protective effect of a tariff in a small economy with uncertainty and a stock market in which shares of firms are traded. In a deterministic economy, the allocation of resources is governed by commodity prices; in our economy, it is governed by equity prices and is dependent on commodity prices only to the extent that they influence equity prices. We show that in the absence of international trade in securities a tariff need not pr…
On Exchange Rate Policies for a Small Country
Journal Article On Exchange Rate Policies for a Small Country Get access M. June Flanders, M. June Flanders Tel Aviv University Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Elhanan Helpman Elhanan Helpman Tel Aviv University and University of Rochester Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The Economic Journal, Volume 88, Issue 349, 1 March 1978, Pages 44–58, https://doi.org/10.2307/2…
A Theory of International Trade Under Uncertainty
Journal Article Theory of International Trade Under Uncertainty Get access Theory of International Trade Under Uncertainty. By ELHANAN HELPMAN and ASSAF RAZIN. (London: Academic Press, 1978. Pp. xii + 185. £12.35.) Theodore Hitiris Theodore Hitiris University of York Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The Economic Journal, Volume 90, Issue 357, 1 March 1980, Pages 185–187, https://doi.org/10.2307/2231674 Publ…
An Exploration in the Theory of Exchange-Rate Regimes
Three exchange-rate regimes--a float, a one-sided peg, and a cooperative peg-are evaluated and compared in terms of efficiency and welfare levels. The framework of analysis embodies country-specific monies, with the money of each country being used to transact in its commodity markets and its currency-denominated bonds. Welfare levels depend only on consumption levels. In the presence of perfect foresight all equilibrium allocations are Pareto ef…
A Theory of International Trade under Uncertainty
Book delves with the puzzle that assets play important role in the theory of international finance but hardly any any role in the theory of international trade. Where this dichotomy comes from? Main feature is that trade in assets may interact in an important ways with trade in goods and services. The book develops a theory that clarified these interactions. It should also help in the understanding of the effects of capital-market policies on tra…
Dynamics of a Floating Exchange Rate Regime
We study the full equilibrium dynamics of a two-country world economy with a floating exchange rate, traded and nontraded goods, and explicit modeling of the use of money. The resulting exchange rate equation depends on several details of the economic structure, such as the supply structure and propensities to spend on various goods. Although real exchange rate movements have the usual association with the current account, the ordinary exchange r…
A Simple Theory of International Trade with Multinational Corporations
Using the idea that firm-specific assets associated with marketing, management, and product-specific R & D can be used to service production plants in countries other than the country in which these inputs are employed, I develop a simple general equilibrium model of international trade in which the location of plants in a differentiated product industry is a decision variable. The model is then used to derive predictions of trade pattern, volume…
Market Structure and Foreign Trade: Increasing Returns, Imperfect Competition, and the International Economy
Journal Article Market Structure and Foreign Trade: Increasing Returns, Imperfect Competition, and the International Economy Get access Market Structure and Foreign Trade: Increasing Returns, Imperfect Competition, and the International Economy. By ELHANAN HELPMAN and PAUL R. KRUGMAN. (Brighton: Wheatsheaf, 1985. Distributed by Harvester Press. Pp. xii + 271. £25.00 hardback.) John Cantwell John Cantwell University of Reading Search for other wor…
Macroeconomic Effects of Price Controls: The Role of Market Structure
Demand and Price Analysis, Marketing
Product Development and International Trade
The authors develop a multicountry, dynamic general equilibrium model of product innovation and international trade to study the creation of comparative advantage through R$50D and the evolution of world trade over time. In their model, firms must incur resource costs to introduce new products, and forward-looking potential producers conduct R$50D and enter the product market whenever profit opportunities exist. Trade has both intraindustry and i…
Trade Policy and Market Structure
Trade Policy and Market Structure
Quality Ladders in the Theory of Growth
We develop a model of repeated product improvements in a continuum of sectors. Each product follows a stochastic progression up a quality ladder. Progress is not uniform across sectors, so an equilibrium distribution of qualities evolves over time. But the rate of aggregate growth is constant. The growth rate responds to profit incentives in the R&D sector. We explore the welfare properties of our model. Then we relate our approach to an alternat…
Quality Ladders and Product Cycles
We develop a two-country model of endogenous innovation and imitation in order to study the interactions between these two processes. Firms in the North race to bring out the next generation of a set of technology-intensive products. Each product potentially can be improved a countably infinite number of times, but quality improvements require the investment of resources and entail uncertain prospects of success. In the South entrepreneurs invest…
Trade, knowledge spillovers, and growth
Endogenous Product Cycles
Journal Article Endogenous Product Cycles Get access Gene M. Grossman, Gene M. Grossman Princeton University Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Elhanan Helpman Elhanan Helpman Tel Aviv University Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The Economic Journal, Volume 101, Issue 408, 1 September 1991, Pages 1214–1229, https://doi.org/10.2307/2234437 Published: 01 September 1991
Innovation, Imitation, and Intellectual Property Rights
The debate between the North and the South about the enforcement of intellectual property rights is examined within a dynamic general equilibrium framework in which the North invents new products and the South imitates them. A welfare evaluation of a policy of tighter intellectual property rights is provided by decomposing its response into four items: (1) terms of trade; (2) production composition; (3) available products; and (4) intertemporal a…
Innovation and Growth in the Global Economy
Traditional growth theory emphasizes the incentives for capital accumulation rather than technological progress. Innovation is treated as an exogenous process or a by-product of investment in machinery and equipment. Grossman and Helpman develop a unique approach in which innovation is viewed as a deliberate outgrowth of investments in industrial research by forward-looking, profit-seeking agents
Electoral Competition and Special Interest Politics
We study the competition between two political parties for seats in a parliament. The parliament will set two types of policies: ideological and non-ideological. The parties have fixed positions on the ideological issues, but choose their non-ideological platforms to attract voters and campaign contributions. In this context, we ask: Flow do the equilibrium contributions from special interest groups influence the platforms of the parties? We show…
Endogenous Innovation in the Theory of Growth
This paper makes the case that purposive, profit-seeking investments in knowledge play a critical role in the long-run growth process. First, the authors review the implications of neoclassical growth theory and the more recent theories of 'endogenous growth.' Then they discuss the empirical evidence that bears on the modeling of long-run growth. Finally, the authors describe in more detail a model of growth based on endogenous technological prog…
International R&D spillovers
Trade Wars and Trade Talks
Whether governments clash in trade disputes or negotiate over trade agreements, their actions in the international arena reflect political conditions back home. Previous studies of cooperative and noncooperative trade relations have focused on governments that are immune from political pressures and that act as benevolent servants of the public interest. Here we take a first step toward introducing domestic politics into the analysis of internati…
Electoral Competition and Special Interest Politics
We study the competition between two political parties for seats in a legislature. The parties have fixed positions on some issues, but vary their positions on others in order to attract votes and campaign contributions. In this context, we examine whether special interest groups are governed by an electoral motive or an influence in their campaign giving, and how their contributions affect the equilibrium platforms. We show that each party is in…
Common Agency and Coordination: General Theory and Application to Government Policy Making
The authors develop a model of common agency with complete information and general preferences with nontransferable utility, and they prove that the principals' Nash equilibrium in truthful strategies implements an efficient action. The authors apply this theory to the construction of a positive model of public finance, where organized special interests can lobby the government for consumer and producer taxes or subsidies and targeted lump-sum ta…
Economics (43 works) · Global trade and economics (19 works) · Political science (19 works) · Microeconomics (16 works) · International trade (14 works) · Economic Growth and Productivity (13 works) · International economics (13 works) · Business (12 works) · Industrial organization (10 works) · Macroeconomics (10 works)