Indirect Network Effects and Trade Liberalization

Iwasa, Kazumichi and Kikuchi, Toru (2009): Indirect Network Effects and Trade Liberalization.

Abstract

Indirect network effects exist when the utility of consumers is increasing in the variety of complementary products available for use with an electronic hardware device. In this paper, we examine how trade liberalization affects production structure in the presence of indirect network effects. For these purposes we construct a simple two-country model of trade with incompatible country-specific hardware technologies. It is shown that, given that both countries' hardware devices remain in the trading equilibrium, both countries gain from trade liberalization. It is also shown that if only one country's hard-ware remains in the integrated market, the other country may lose from trade liberalization.

• Item Type: MPRA Paper
• Language: English
• Keywords: Indirect network effects; trade liberalization
• Subjects: F - International Economics > F1 - Trade > F12 - Models of Trade with Imperfect Competition and Scale Economies ; Fragmentation

References

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