Specification choice and robustness in CGE trade policy analysis with imperfect competition [An article from: Economic Modelling]

This digital document is a journal article from Economic Modelling, published by Elsevier in 2004. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Media Library immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Description:
In order to contribute to a more comprehensive understanding of the robustness of the quantitative results of applied trade policy simulations to variations in the assumptions about firm conduct, this article provides a systematic synopsis of alternative formulations of imperfectly competitive supply behaviour in applied general equilibrium trade models and examines the sensitivity of simulated trade policy effects to the specification choice and calibration strategy within a prototype multi-country model. The analysis suggests in particular, that simulation results are generally far more sensitive to numerical specification choices at the calibration stage, than to the prior choice of firm conduct specification.