报告题目：Search Cost and the Elusive Distance Elasticity in International Trade（搜寻成本与‘不死’的距离）

报告人：王永进（南开大学）

报告时间：2023年11月14日（星期二）下午2:00-3:15

报告地点：腾讯会议846-620-407

邀请部门：经济学系

报告人简介：

王永进，南开大学经济学院，教授，博士生导师，教育部国家级青年人才项目，南开大学百名青年学科带头人。在 Journal of International Economics、《中国社会科学》、《经济研究》、《管理世界》、《经济学季刊》等期刊发表论文70余篇，担任《经济研究》、《经济学季刊》等期刊的匿名审稿人。主持国家自然科学基金等课题多项。国家自然科学基金同行评议专家。

报告摘要：

The empirical evidence is controversial on whether a reduction in the search cost mit- igates the deterrent role of physical distance on international trade. In this paper, we develop a trade model with sequential consumer search to explore the effect of a reduction in search cost on the distance elasticity. We show that a reduction in the search cost may increase or decrease the distance elasticity depending on whether the consumer’s preference is log-concave or log-convex distributed. Then we exploit the roll-out of the “broadband China pilot” over Chinese cities as a quasi-experiment of search cost reductions and examine its implications for the distance elasticity. Overall, we find an increase in distance elasticity following the reductions in search cost. How- ever, the distance elasticity becomes smaller when the consumers’ income is closer to the Pareto distribution, consistent with the theoretical prediction.