Functional Forms for Tractable Economic Models and the Cost Structure of International Trade

Michal Fabinger; E. Glen Weyl

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arXiv · 1611.02270

Functional Forms for Tractable Economic Models and the Cost Structure of International Trade

Michal Fabinger·E. Glen Weyl

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Abstract

We present functional forms allowing a broader range of analytic solutions to common economic equilibrium problems. These can increase the realism of pen-and-paper solutions or speed large-scale numerical solutions as computational subroutines. We use the latter approach to build a tractable heterogeneous firm model of international trade accommodating economies of scale in export and diseconomies of scale in production, providing a natural, unified solution to several puzzles concerning trade costs. We briefly highlight applications in a range of other fields. Our method of generating analytic solutions is a discrete approximation to a logarithmically modified Laplace transform of equilibrium conditions.

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Michal Fabinger, E. Glen Weyl. 2018-08-18. Functional Forms for Tractable Economic Models and the Cost Structure of International Trade. https://arxiv.org/abs/1611.02270

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