Download or read book Heterogeneous Firms and Import Quality written by Benjamin R. Mandel and published by DIANE Publishing. This book was released on 2010-11 with total page 49 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A key emerging insight in international econ. is that the scope for quality differentiation can help to explain patterns in export prices at the level of products or firms. In this paper, a unified theoretical framework of firm heterogeneity in cost and quality is brought to bear on an expansive data set of U.S. import transaction prices. The higher moments of the price distribution are used to identify the scope for quality differentiation at the detailed product level. The product classification is then used to evaluate two claims in the nascent firm-level trade quality lit. First, the positive link between exporter capability and price is found to depend on the nature of the product. Second, a time series test documents firm sorting into export markets according to output quality. Illus.