Trade Liberalization and Markup Dispersion: Evidence from China's WTO Accession
利用中国2001年底加入WTO作为自然实验，发现贸易自由化降低了行业内企业的加成率离散度，从而可能改善资源配置效率。
In this paper, we empirically investigate whether trade liberalization affects markup dispersion, a potential source of resource misallocation. The identification uses China's WTO accession at the end of 2001. We show that trade liberalization reduces markup dispersion within a narrowly defined industry. We also examine both price and cost responses to trade liberalization, as well as heterogeneous effects across firms and across locations. Our study contributes to the literature by identifying another potential channel through which free trade benefits a nation.