Estimating Cross-Country Differences in Product Quality*
利用贸易余额信息分解出口价格中的质量成分，发现观察到的单位价值比不能准确反映相对质量差异，各国质量收敛速度快于收入收敛，且存在“高质量”与“低价”两种增长策略。
We develop a method for decomposing countries' observed export prices into quality versus quality-adjusted components using information contained in trade balances. Holding observed export prices constant, countries with trade surpluses are inferred to offer higher quality than countries running trade deficits. We account for variation in trade balances induced by horizontal and vertical differentiation, and we estimate the evolution of manufacturing quality for top exporters from 1989 to 2003. We find that observed unit value ratios can be a poor approximation for relative quality differences, countries' quality is converging more rapidly than their income, and countries appear to vary in terms of displaying “high-quality” versus “low-price” growth strategies.