International Prices and Endogenous Quality*
研究了国际贸易中商品质量对单位价值的影响，构建了包含内生质量选择的垄断竞争模型，为185个国家估算了1984-2011年的质量调整价格指数，发现质量调整后的价格在国家间差异远小于单位价值，且与收入水平负相关。
Abstract The unit values of internationally traded goods are heavily influenced by quality. We model this in an extended monopolistic competition framework where, in addition to choosing price, firms simultaneously choose quality subject to nonhomothetic demand. We estimate quality and quality-adjusted price indexes for 185 countries over 1984–2011. Our estimates are less sensitive to assumptions about the extensive margin of firms than are purely “demand-side” estimates. We find that quality-adjusted prices vary much less across countries than do unit values and, surprisingly, the quality-adjusted terms of trade are negatively related to countries’ level of income.