We derive closed-form expressions for the distribution of export intensity when firm-destination-specific revenue shifters are distributed gamma, Frechet and Weibull in a two-country model of trade with isoelastic demand. We estimate the parameters governing the distribution of export intensity for each type of revenue shifter across 72 countries. We compare the model's fit to the distribution of export intensity across countries when revenue shifters are distributed lognormal, gamma and Frechet/Weibull. While lognormal slightly outperforms the other distributions, all revenue shifters considered reproduce salient features of export intensity distributions within and between countries quite successfully.

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1 October 2022

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Economics Letters 2192022

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DOI: 10.1016/j.econlet.2022.110810

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S016517652200297X

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