Terms Of Trade Case Study

1590 Words4 Pages

Question 1 Terms of Trade is defined as “the price of a country’s exports divided by the price of its imports” (Krugman, Obstfeld, & Melitz, 2015). Essentially, if export prices increase faster than import prices, then the terms of trade improve; reversely, if import prices increase faster than export prices, then the terms of trade deteriorate. This is because when export prices are higher than import prices, the terms of trade is higher than when the export prices are less than import prices (shown in equation 1 below). Equation 1: Terms of Trade = (Price of Exports/Price of Imports)*100 Terms of Trade change mainly due to economic growth and trade barriers. Economic growth is biased; export-biased growth is when growth “disproportionately …show more content…

Also, entry and exit is free, and in the long run, there are no economic profits (Krugman et al., 2015). In monopolistic competition, firms will sell more when total industry sales rise and when their rivals charge higher prices; they will sell less when firms exit the industry and prices rise. In Figure 4, the CC curve shows the relationship between average cost and number of firms; when there are more firms in the industry, the average cost increases because each firm produces less individually. Figure 4 also shows the relationship of number of firms and price through the PP curve; when there are more firms in the industry, there is more competition, so in order for firms to maximize profits, they will reduce prices charged. At n3, there are a lot of firms in the industry, and the corresponding price will be low, at P3. When firms exit the industry, to move to n2, the price rises to P2. This shows how fewer firms make prices rise, as there is less competition. This results in a downward sloping PP curve under monopolistic …show more content…

Where as, Intra-industry trades are “two-way exchanges of similar goods” (Krugman et al., 2015). Hence, intra-industry trades are “not based on comparative advantage” (Krugman et al., 2015). The main difference between inter- and intra- industry trade is that inter-industry trade occurs because of comparative advantage, while intra-industry trade happens because of lower costs from economies of scale and the wider variety of products for consumers. For example, there is intra-industry trade in the US auto industry (Turkcan, & Ates, 2010). Turkcan and Ates (2010) point out that the increase in outsourcing in the automobile industry has increased intra-industry trade; outsourcing has allowed manufacturers to get parts from the “best suppliers” which results in “lower unit costs”. They also indicate that companies “benefit from economies of scale” when outsourcing (Turkcan, & Ates, 2010). Another difference is that since monopolistic competition cannot predict which country will import and export in intra-industry competition, differentiation of goods may create comparative advantage which may determine which country will import and export a certain variety of a good. For example, Japan mainly makes family cars, like Toyota, while Germany mainly makes sports cars, like Audi; therefore, Germany will have a lower unit cost for sports cars and Japan will have a lower unit cost for family cars (Dudovskiy, 2012). In

Open Document