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From selling goods to selling services: firm responses to trade liberalization

Holger Breinlich, Anson Soderbery and Greg C. Wright


In this paper, we focus on a new channel of adaptation to trade liberalization , namely the shift toward increased provision of services in lieu of goods production. We exploit variation in European Union trade policy to show that lower manufacturing tariffs lead firms to shift into services provision and out of goods production. We also find that a successful transition is associated with higher firm-level R&D stocks.


1 November 2018


American Economic Journal: Economic Policy 10(4) , pp.79-108, 2018


DOI: 10.1257/pol.20150116

This Journal article is published under the centre's Trade programme.

This publication comes under the following theme: Global firms