克鲁格曼《国际经济学》第八版课后答案(英文)-Ch06

Chapter 6

Economies of Scale, Imperfect Competition,

and International Trade

?

Chapter Organization

Economies of Scale and International Trade: An Overview

Economies of Scale and Market Structure

The Theory of Imperfect Competition

Monopoly: A Brief Review

Monopolistic Competition

Limitations of the Monopolistic Competition Model

Monopolistic Competition and Trade

The Effects of Increased Market Size

Gains from an Integrated Market: A Numerical Example

Economies of Scale and Comparative Advantage

The Significance of Intraindustry Trade

Why Intraindustry Trade Matters

Case Study: Intraindustry Trade in Action: The North American Auto Pact

Dumping

The Economics of Dumping

Case Study: Anti-Dumping as Protection

Reciprocal Dumping

The Theory of External Economies

Specialized Suppliers

Labor Market Pooling

Knowledge Spillovers

External Economies and Increasing Returns

22

Krugman/Obstfeld

?

International Economics: Theory and Policy,

Eighth Edition

External Economies and International Trade

External Economies and the Pattern of Trade

Trade and Welfare with External Economies

Box: Tinseltown Economics

Dynamic Increasing Returns

Economic Geography and Interregional Trade

Summary

Appendix: Determining Marginal Revenue

?

Chapter Overview

In previous chapters, trade between nations was motivated by their differences in factor productivity or

relative factor endowments. The type of trade which occurred, for example of food for manufactures, is

based on comparative advantage and is called

interindustry trade

. This chapter introduces trade based on

economies of scale in production. Such trade in similar productions is called

intraindustry trade

, and

describes, for example, the trading of one type of manufactured good for another type of manufactured

good. It is shown that trade can occur when there are no technological or endowment differences, but

when there are economies of scale or increasing returns in production.

Economies of scale can either take the form of (1)

external economies

, whereby the cost per unit depends

on the size of the industry but not necessarily on the size of the firm; or as (2)

internal economies

, whereby

the production cost per unit of output depends on the size of the individual firm but not necessarily on the

size of the industry. Internal economies of scale give rise to imperfectly competitive markets, unlike the

perfectly competitive market structures that were assumed to exist in earlier chapters. This motivates

the review of models of imperfect competition, including monopoly and monopolistic competition. The

instructor should spend some time making certain that students understand the equilibrium concepts of

these models since they are important for the justification of intraindustry trade.

In markets described by monopolistic competition, there are a number of firms in an industry, each of which

produces a differentiated product. Demand for its good depends on the number of other similar products

available and their prices. This type of model is useful for illustrating that trade improves the trade-off

between scale and variety available to a country. In an industry described by monopolistic competition, a

larger market

—

such as that which arises through international trade

—

lowers average price (by increasing

production and lowering average costs) and makes available for consumption a greater range of goods.

While an integrated market also supports the existence of a larger number of firms in an industry, the

model presented in the text does not make predictions about where these industries will be located.

It is also interesting to compare the distributional effects of trade when motivated by comparative advantage

with those when trade is motivated by increasing returns to scale in production. When countries are similar

in their factor endowments, and when scale economies and product differentiation are important, the income

distributional effects of trade will be small. You should make clear to the students the sharp contrast between

the predictions of the models of monopolistic competition and the specific factors and Heckscher-Ohlin

theories of international trade. Without clarification, some students may find the contrasting predictions

of these models confusing.

Another important issue related to imperfectly competitive markets is the practice of price discrimination,

namely charging different customers different prices. One particularly controversial form of price

discrimination is dumping, whereby a firm charges lower prices for exported goods than for goods sold

domestically. This can occur only when domestic and foreign markets are segmented. The economics