Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0262081822 ISBN 13: 9780262081825

Verlag: The MIT Press, 1989

In their previous book Market Structure and Foreign Trade, Helpman and Krugman undertook a systematic analysis of the new trade theory characterized by imperfect competition. This book provides an overview of the new international trade's applied side. It is a compact guide to models of the effects of trade policy in imperfectly competitive markets, an up to date survey of existing knowledge that is extended by the authors' useful interpretations of the results and many original insights.

Trade Policy and Market Structure systematically develops the implications of trade policy under a number of different market structures. It begins with the effect of trade policy under pure competition and then skillfully develops the intuition necessary for understanding the more complicated imperfectly competitive models. Arguments are made more accessible through the use of diagrams, descriptions, and simple algebra.

The book synthesizes the arguments of all the major contributors to the policy applications of the new international economics: Jagdish Bhagwati, James Brander, Avinash Dixit, Jonathan Eaton, Gene Grossman, Richard Harris, Barbara Spencer, and Anthony Venables. Helpman and Krugman draw three themes from this extensive body of research that, expressed in terms of models, occur throughout the book: the effects of trade policy on market power, the strategic effect of trade policy on competition; and the effect of trade policy on consumer choice.

Elhanan Helpman is Professor of Economics at Tel Aviv University. Paul R. Krugman is Professor of Economics at MIT.

About the Author:

Elhanan Helpman is Professor of Economics at Harvard University, the Archie Sherman Chair Professor of International Economic Relations in the Eitan Berglas School of Economics at Tel-Aviv University, and a Fellow at the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research.

Paul Krugman is Professor of Economics and International Affairs at Princeton University and a New York Times columnist. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Economics in 2008.

Review:

"A brilliant success.... This book, like its predecessor, will be taken for granted as shared background in future scholarly discussion of the issues it treats. Robert E. Lucas, Jr. , Journal of Political Economy

"An excellent summary of the basic ideas on trade policy under conditions of imperfect competition. Not only does it provide a good guide to what has been happening in this area of research, but it also organizes the variety of models in such a way as to furnish the reader with rich insights." Konstantine Gatsios , Economica