Objective
The study of international trade has made huge advances in recent decades by moving away from a perfectly competitive view of the world, and allowing for increasing returns and product diversity. However, in this effort it has borrowed very selectively from the theory of industrial organization. Both the “new trade theory revolution” of Krugman and others, and the more recent development of models with firm heterogeneity by Melitz and others, have entrenched the position of monopolistic competition as the dominant approach to modelling international trade. This ignores the insights of oligopoly theory, since it assumes that all firms are infinitesimal in scale, are equally likely to exit in a given period, and do not interact strategically. It also sits uneasily with a growing body of empirical work which shows that much of international trade is accounted for by very large firms.
My project aims to bridge this gap by extending the theory of oligopoly and trade. Drawing on my past work, I propose to develop a new theoretical framework which recognizes the central role played by “superstar firms” while also allowing for entry of new firms and for interactions between sectors in general equilibrium. This involves three distinct strands. First is the development of models with a small number of large firms, interacting strategically with each other, while simultaneously competing against a “monopolistically competitive fringe” of small firms. Second is the application of these models to allow for a broader range of behaviour by large firms, including strategic investment in research and development, and a proliferation of products produced and markets served. And third is to use the techniques of monotone comparative statics to explore the properties of superstar-firm models, and to derive testable predictions from them.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
- social sciences political sciences political transitions revolutions
- social sciences economics and business business and management commerce
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Programme(s)
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
Topic(s)
Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Call for proposal
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
ERC-2011-ADG_20110406
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Funding Scheme
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
Host institution
OX1 2JD Oxford
United Kingdom
The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.