Strategic trading and Ricardian comparative advantage

Toraubally, W. ORCID: 0000-0002-2684-7360, 2022. Strategic trading and Ricardian comparative advantage. Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, 195, pp. 428-447.

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Abstract

This paper analyses the failure of the traditional Ricardo–Haberlerian (1817; 1936) theory of comparative advantage (RTCA) in a strategic market game à la Shapley–Shubik (1977). In this model, trade is driven, not by comparative advantages, but by strategic considerations. We prove, in a Ricardian framework, the simultaneous existence of two types of equilibria, at both of which active international trade takes place. In the first type of equilibrium, both countries specialise based on comparative advantages. In the other, each country produces only its comparative-disadvantage good. The welfare properties, and policy implications of this result (using the examples of the China–US trade war and Venezuela), are discussed at length in two dedicated sections. We show that the predictions of the RTCA depend, not on the number of agents in the economy, but on the nature of agents: the RTCA fails to obtain even with an infinite number of large players in each country. We prove that the RTCA prevails when agents are price-takers, and establish the conditions under which equilibria of our market game coincide with Walrasian ones.

Item Type:	Journal article
Publication Title:	Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization
Creators:	Toraubally, W.
Publisher:	Elsevier
Date:	March 2022
Volume:	195
Identifiers:	Number Type 10.1016/j.jebo.2021.10.031 DOI S0167268121004613 Publisher Item Identifier 1532030 Other
Divisions:	Schools > Nottingham Business School
Record created by:	Linda Sullivan
Date Added:	07 Apr 2022 09:35
Last Modified:	15 Aug 2023 03:00
URI:	https://irep.ntu.ac.uk/id/eprint/46071

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