Export Activity and Strategic Trade Policy

New theories of international trade suggest that pro-tectionism can make sense. This finding depends on the in-
troduction of market power and increasing returns to scale
into the international trade theory. The enormous political
implications of this hypothesis have started a large
interest in applied or empirical investigations of this
issue. However, econometric work in international trade is
comparatively scarce, especially if it comes to testing with
individual data. Therefore, this volume is considered to be
a contribution to fill that gap. The volume consists of
three parts: First, issues in strategic trade are discussed
by means of a survey on recent contributions of the
literatureand by a simulation excercise on optimal trade
policy for imperfectly competitive industries. Second, a
part investigating the determinants of trade flows studies
the interrelationships between trade balances and exchange
rates, plant size and international trade, and the revelance
offirm size and market concentration for the degree of
export market integration using business survey firm data.
Third, there are studies on imperfect markets, innovations
and learning which demonstrate the importanceof imperfect
competition for international economics. All contributions
provide empirical evidence for the revelance of the newly
developed trade theories and demonstrate useful quantitative
techniques for their investigation.

I. Introduction.- Introductory Overview.- II. Issues in Strategic Trade Policy.- Recent Developments in Strategic Trade Policy and Empirical Evidence.- Constrained Optimal Trade Policy for Imperfectly Competitive Industries.- III. Determinants of Trade Flows.- Trade Balances and Exchange Rates: Are They Co-integrated?.- Plant Size, Scale Economies, and International Trade.- Determinants of Export Activity in Italian Manufacturing Industries: Results from Panel Data.- IV. Imperfect Markets, Innovations and Learning.- International Trade in a Neoclassical Model of Innovative Activity with Monopolistic Competition.- Relative Export Prices and Firm Size in Imperfect Markets.- The Learning Curve and Export Price: Some Evidence on Japanese Manufacturing.- List of Contributors.