Sunk Costs of R&D, Trade and Productivity: The Moulds Industry Case
研究了国际贸易如何通过扩大市场准入，使最优企业利用研发的规模经济来促进技术创新和生产率增长，并以葡萄牙模具行业为例，分析了欧洲经济一体化对创新的影响以及退出欧盟的负面效应。
International trade can create conditions for technological innovation and productivity growth. The mechanism linking trade and innovation is simple. By increasing access to foreign markets, trade allows the best firms to exploit the economies of scale in R&D. The potential to steal market share increases as product differentiation decreases. To measure the empirical importance of this mechanism, I set up and estimate a dynamic equilibrium model with endogenous size and productivity decisions. I then illustrate how the European economic integration induced innovation in the Portuguese Moulds industry and how a potential withdrawal from the EU would negatively affect innovation.