Article-Middlemen Margins and Globalization

8/12/2019 Article-Middlemen Margins and Globalization

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MIDDLEMEN MARGINS AND

GLOBALIZATION1

Pranab Bardhan2, Dilip Mookherjee3 and Masatoshi

Tsumagari4

This version: August 22, 2012

Abstract

We study a competitive theory of middlemen with brand-name rep-utations necessary to overcome product quality moral hazard prob-lems. Agents with heterogeneous abilities sort into different sectorsand occupations. Middleman margins do not equalize across sectors ifproduction of different goods are differentially prone to moral hazard,generating endogenous mobility barriers. We embed the model in asetting of North-South trade, and explore the distributive implicationsof trade liberalization. With large inter-sectoral moral hazard differ-ences, results similar to those of Ricardo-Viner specific-factor modelsobtain, whereby Southern inequality increases. Otherwise, opposite(i.e., Stolper-Samuelson) results obtain.

Keywords: middlemen, reputation, inequality, trade liberalization, North-South trade; JEL Classification Nos: D33, F12, F13, F21

1Mookherjees research was supported by National Science Foundation grant SES-0617874. We thank Stefania Garetto, Gordon Hanson, Eric Verhoogen, Jon Vogel, Arnaud

Costinot and seminar participants at Columbia, IFPRI, Keio, MIT, Namur, NYU and Yalefor useful comments.2Department of Economics, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720; bard-

[email protected] of Economics, Boston University, 270 Bay State Road, Boston MA 02215;

[email protected] of Economics, Keio University, 2-15-45 Mita Minato-ku Tokyo;

[email protected]

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1 Introduction

Conventional trade theory focuses mainly on sources of production costs,ignoring the role of endogenous marketing costs and margins that accrue totrade intermediaries. Yet there is considerable evidence of the importanceof intermediaries and associated markups that drive large wedges betweenconsumer and producer prices. For instance, Feenstra (1998) provides thefollowing breakdown of the $10 retail price of a Barbie doll sold to US cus-tomers: 35 cents in wages paid to Chinese labor, material costs of 65 cents,$1 incurred for transportation, profits and overhead by Hong Kong inter-mediaries, and at least $1 return net of transport and distribution costs toMattel, the US retailer. Arndt et al. (2000) estimate middleman markups

of 111% in food crops, 52% in export crops, 59% in food processing and36% in textile and leather in Mozambique. Fafchamps and Hill (2008),McMillan, Rodrik and Welch (2002) and Nicita (2004) estimate rates ofpass-through less than 50% from border prices to producer prices in thecase of Ugandan coffee, Mozambique cashews and a range of Mexican agri-cultural goods respectively. These facts suggest that only a small fractionof the benefits of export growth in developing countries following trade lib-eralization trickle down to farmers and workers. Consequently globalizationmay achieve limited impacts on poverty reduction and increase inequality indeveloping countries (Hertel and Winters (2005), Winters, McCulloch andMcKay (2004)), contrary to the predictions of classic trade theory.

These observations motivate our interest in a theory which explains therole of middlemen in trade, which can be used to examine determinants ofmiddleman margins, and subsequently predict distributive impacts of tradeliberalization or offshoring. In this paper we explore a competitive equi-librium model in which brand-name reputations of middlemen are neededto overcome product quality moral hazard problems. Middleman marginsrepresent reputational rents, rather than returns to market power resultingfrom technological increasing returns (in transport, storage or distribution).There is considerable evidence of the role of brand names and reputationin the context of trade (elaborated further in Section 5.1), ranging fromconsumer studies (Berges and Casellas (2007), Roth and Romeo (1992));

accounts of the role of trust and long-term relational contracting in inter-national trade (Rauch (2001)), and econometric analyses of specific tradedgoods (Banerjee and Duflo (2000), Dalton and Goksel (2009), Machiavello(2010)).

Our model of middlemen builds on the theory of Biglaiser and Fried-man (1994), and extends it to a general equilibrium theory of occupational

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choice. Middlemen carry out a range of functions, including procurement of

goods produced by suppliers, financing their working capital requirements,and marketing the product. Reputational markups form part of returns ac-cruing to middlemen. These rents generate requisite incentives to maintainquality, since they would be sacrificed by middlemen in the event of los-ing their reputation. The size of these rents are proportional to the size oftheir business, which in turn is correlated with their underlying ability tomanage. Agents in the economy differ in their management ability; we takethe distribution of ability as a parameter of the model. As in Lucas (1978),ability can be viewed as reflecting innate capacities to supervise workers.Alternatively they may reflect technical knowhow, financing or marketingskills.

Agents with heterogeneous ability sort themselves into different occupa-tions and sectors. Only those with ability above some (endogenous) thresh-old satisfy the incentive compatibility conditions for credible quality assur-ance in any given sector. Low ability agents have no choice but to producegoods and supply them to middlemen, as they lack the reputation necessaryto sell directly to final consumers. High ability agents become middlemen insectors where they meet required ability (i.e., size) thresholds. In order to fo-cus exclusively on the nonconvexities arising due to reputations, we assumethat the underlying production technology satisfies constant returns to scale.Moreover, all agents are price takers. Hence middleman margins representcompetitively determined incentive rents, rather than market power.

We embed this model in an otherwise standard model of North-Southtrade, in which countries differ only with respect to relative factor endow-ments. In this setting we explore the resulting implications for patternsof comparative advantage, North-South factor price differences, and effectsof trade liberalization. Our model allows distributional effects within anygiven sector to be summarized by a single measure of inequality: the ra-tio of returns earned by middlemen (of a given ability) to those earned byproducers.5

Our main finding is that the nature of equilibria and their comparativestatic properties depend on how moral hazard differs across sectors. Withlarge differences, entry thresholds restrict the movement of entrepreneurs

across sectors, allowing intersectoral differences in middlemen rents to per-sist in equilibrium. For certain configurations of moral hazard, technology

5This also equals the ratio of ability gradient of middleman rents to producer earnings.Specifically, if producers earn w then a middleman of ability a in sector i earns iwa,where i is the measure of inequality of earnings within sectori.

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and endowments, these mobility restrictions cause equilibrium comparative

static effects to resemble the predictions of specific factors (SF) models ofthe Ricardo-Viner variety. For other configurations, mobility restrictions donot arise, wherein classical results of Heckscher-Ohlin (HO) theory emerge.

Specifically, one set of conditions under which SF results obtain is thefollowing: the proneness to moral hazard differs markedly across goods, andthe South has a comparative advantage in the good more prone to moral haz-ard. This would arise for instance, if the South has a comparative advantagein farm goods, which are more prone to quality adulteration than high-techgoods in which the North has a comparative advantage. Middleman mar-gins are then higher in the farm good sector owing to the greater severityof the moral hazard problem. Trade liberalization would increase export

demand for farm goods in the South. To satisfy this demand, entrepreneursless able than existing incumbents must enter the farm-good sector. For thisto happen, middleman rents must increase by more than producer earningsin order to enable the new entrants to be credible suppliers of high qualityfarm goods. Hence intra-sectoral inequality between the earnings of mid-dlemen and producers in the Southern farm-good sector rises. Conversely,the Southern high-tech sector contracts in the facing of rising import com-petition, and middleman margins in that sector fall relative to producerearnings. If the export sector is large enough, therefore, average inequalityof returns to middlemen and producers in the Southern economy as a wholerises, opposite to the predictions of the Stolper-Samuelson Theorem.

Nor will factor returns be equalized across countries under the conditionsdescribed above: a higher aggregate endowment of entrepreneurial abilityin Northern countries results in lower inequality in the North in autarky.Trade liberalization accentuates these differences, since (as explained above)inequality rises in the South and falls in the North.6

In this setting trade liberalization increases incentives for Northern mid-dlemen to offshore production to Southern countries. However the distribu-tive effects of offshoring are qualitatively different from trade liberalization.Offshoring allows high ability middlemen from the North to compete withSouthern middlemen for Southern producers, lowering intra-sectoral inequal-ity in the South.

The preceding results obtain when the farm good sector (in which theSouth has a comparative advantage) is more prone to moral hazard. In

6Aggregate welfare effects of trade liberalization turn out to be ambiguous, owing to thepecuniary externalities associated with movement of entrepreneurs across sectors. This isshown in the working paper version of this paper (Bardhan et al. (2012)).

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the opposite case where the high-tech good is more prone to moral haz-

ard, similar anti-Stolper-Samuelson results can be shown to hold providedthe elasticity of substitution between inputs supplied by producers and theservices supplied by middlemen is large enough.7

On the other hand equilibria turn out to resemble HO predictions in thecase where both sectors are equally prone to moral hazard. Relative factorreturns are then equalized across sectors. Entrepreneurs are indifferent be-tween which sector to operate in, so they can switch into the export sectorfollowing trade liberalization. An increase in inequality of factor returns inthe export sector is no longer necessary to induce entry of more middlemen,and does not happen in equilibrium for exactly the same reason as in thestandard HO theory.

It is hard to judge whether proneness to moral hazard differs substan-tially across export and import competing sectors, as there is relatively littledirect evidence concerning the extent of moral hazard in any given sector.Section 5.1 reviews the fragmentary evidence available concerning this. Itis easier instead to check evidence concerning the division of product rev-enues between middlemen and producers. Our theory indicates that SFresults apply in cases where moral hazard differs substantially across sec-tors. Available evidence from a number of developing countries (reviewed inSection 5.1) indicates that relative returns to middlemen are substantiallyhigher in less skill-intensive goods exported from the South.

Moreover, there is some empirical evidence consistent with the key mech-

anism underlying the anti-Stolper-Samuelson result in our theory. Fafchampsand Hill (2008) and McMillan, Rodrik and Welch (2002) show in the caseof Ugandan coffee and Mozambique cashew exports respectively that in-creases in border prices were accompanied by widening inequality betweenmiddleman margins and farmgate prices, and entry of less efficient groupsof middlemen into these sectors.

Our theory therefore has the potential to explain hitherto puzzling evi-dence concerning the distributive impact of trade integration on developingcountries, wherein Stolper-Samuelson predictions have generally not beenborne out. This literature (surveyed by Goldberg and Pavcnik (2007), Harri-son, McLaren and McMillan (2010), Winters, McCulloch and McKay (2004)

or Wood (1997)) shows increases in inequality in relative earnings of non-production and production workers resulting from trade liberalization inmany Southern countries. Our theory provides detailed predictions con-cerning conflicting effects of trade liberalization on inequality within export

7These results are not provided here but are available in Bardhan et al. (2012).

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and import-competing sectors, and the role of differences in factor returns

across sectors, which could be tested in future research.The paper is organized as follows. Section 2 introduces the model. Sec-

tion 3 starts by describing the equilibrium of the supply-side of the economy,with given product prices, and its comparative static properties. This is fol-lowed by Section 4 which studies the economy-wide equilibrium, startingwith the context of an autarkic economy. We then extend it to a two coun-try context and study effects of trade liberalization and offshoring. Section5 describes relation to existing literature, both theoretical models as well asempirical evidence in more detail. Finally, Section 6 concludes, while proofsare collected in the Appendix.

2 Closed Economy Model

2.1 Endowment and Technology

There are two goods L and H. Within each sector the production work iscarried out by one set of agents called producers or suppliers, and procuredby another set of agents called middlemen or entrepreneurs. Each middle-man operates an independent business specializing in selling a specific good.Middlemen provide raw material needs of each supplier they contract with,following which the supplier produces and delivers one unit of intermediategood to the middleman. The total quantity of intermediate goods procured

by each middleman is then packaged, branded and sold to final consumers.We can therefore represent the production process as combining two fac-tors: production services provided by suppliers, and management servicesprovided by the middleman who sells the product.

As in Lucas (1978), every agent is endowed with an amount of en-trepreneurial ability, which determines the quantum of management servicesthey can provide, which ultimately affects the size of the business they canmanage. Managerial ability reflects limits on how many suppliers the mid-dleman can supervise or finance, or how many consumers he can market theproduct to.

We normalize the size of the population to unity. Each agent is charac-

terized by a level of entrepreneurial ability a, a nonnegative real variable.A fraction 1 of agents have no ability at all: a= 0: we refer to them asunskilled. The remaining fraction are skilled; the distribution of ability isgiven by a distribution function G(a) on (0, ). We shall frequently use thenotation d(a)

a adG(a). Gwill be assumed to have a density g which ispositive-valued. Then d is a strictly decreasing and differentiable function.

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Any given agent decides whether to become a middleman or producer. If

she decides to become a middleman, she selects which good to specialize in,the scale of the business (equivalently, the number of suppliers contractedwith), and the quality of the final good to be sold.

The quality of each good can either be high or low. The number of unitsof good i {L, H} that can be delivered by the middleman to consumersis defined by a production function Xi =Fi(ni, a) for the high quality ver-sion, and Fi(ni, zia) for the low quality version. Here zi > 1 is a technologyparameter representing the severity of the quality moral hazard problem, adenotes the ability of the entrepreneur, and ni the number of suppliers shecontracts with. Fi is a smooth and strictly concave production function withconstant returns to scale, satisfying the Inada condition that the marginal

product of each factor grows without bound as its use shrinks to zero. Pro-ducing lower quality enables a middleman to deliver a larger quantity of thegood with the same number of suppliers. For instance, the ability parametercould represent the maximum amount of raw material that the middlemanhas the capacity to supply to her suppliers, and the low quality version ofthe good uses less raw material per unit of intermediate good. Alternatively,if ability refers to inspection capacity, producing a lower quality version re-quires less intensive inspection of the intermediate good supplied by eachsupplier.8

2.2 Middlemans Profit Maximization and Equilibrium Price-

Cost Relations

All agents in our model take prices as given. Consider the problem faced bya middleman of ability a operating in sector i {L, H} who has decided tosupply the high quality version of the good to consumers. A similar analysisapplies if the middleman decides to supply the low quality version of thegood, where the ability of the middleman a is replaced by azi.

Each supplier must be paid w, and the product price is pi (with the Hgood acting as numeraire, sopH= 1). The middleman would have to decidehow many suppliers to contract with, i.e., solve the following problem:

maxni piFi(ni, a) wni. (1)

The solution ni is a function ofpi/w, besides a, characterized by the first-

8An alternative formulation of the moral hazard problem would be one where theproduction function for the low quality version is ziFi(ni, a). This is closely related to ourformulation, and the two versions coincide in the case of a Leontief technology.

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order condition

(pi/w)Fi(ni , a)/ni = 1. (2)

It is easy to check that ni is linear in a. In the Cobb-Douglas case wherethe production function is nii a

1i with i (0, 1), we have

ni =a[piw

i]1

1i .

Let i (pi, w; a) denote the resulting level of profit earned by the mid-dleman. This is also linear in a. In the Cobb-Douglas case, we have

i =a(1 i)p1

1ii {

iw

}i

1i .

In other words, the profit is constant per unit of ability of the middleman.This gives rise to a scalar measure of inequality of returns to middlemen andsuppliers within sector i: the ratio of middleman profit per unit of ability,to earnings of suppliers:

i iwa

(3)

By definition, i awi = 0, i.e., the middleman earns zero profit in thehypothetical scenario where she purchases her own ability on a competitivemarket at a fixed price of wi. Moreover, it is easy to check that (n

i , a)maximizespiFi(ni, a)wniwiawith respect to choice of (ni, a).

9 In otherwords, optimal employment of suppliers and the middlemans own abilitywill be the profit-maximizing factor combinations that would have beenchosen by an as if firm owner who pays for both inputs at the (imputed)factor prices (w,wi), and ends up with zero profit. Hence i can also beinterpreted as the relative return to the two factors: middleman ability andsuppliers respectively in sector i.

We now introduce a key assumption on the technology ruling out factor-intensity reversals between the two sectors producing H andL respectively.Consider the cost-minimizing factor combinations in each sector for a hypo-thetical as if firm owner procuring the two factors of production at a fixedrelative price : (Hn(),

Ha ()) and (

Ln (),

La ()) are defined as

(Hn(), Ha ()) arg min{Hn + Ha |FH(Hn, Ha ) = 1}

and(Ln (),

La ()) arg min{

Ln +

La |FL(

Ln ,

La ) = 1}

9In particular profits in this hypothetical scenario are zero, and thus invariant withrespect to variations in a, a measure of the scale of the business.

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The following assumption states that good L is uniformly less skill-

intensive than good H, where we identify managerial services provided bythe entrepreneur as the skilled input and production services provided bysuppliers as the unskilled input. Specifically, cost-minimizing factor choicesin productL at common factor prices involve a greater input of productionservices relative to managerial services.

Assumption 1 For any >0,

Ln ()

La ()>

Hn()

Ha ()

In the case of a Cobb-Douglas technology introduced earlier, this reduces

simply to L > H.The Inada condition for the production function implies that maximizedprofit i of an entrepreneur with positive ability is strictly positive, pro-

vided the product price is positive. Moreover, defining i (pi,w,a)

wa i(piw ; a),

the function i(.; a) is strictly increasing and differentiable. Hencei(.; a)is invertible, and it is easy to check that the inverse function equals theminimized unit cost of production (where the price of suppliers is set equalto one, and for ability is set equal to its implicit unit cost relative to ni).Hence condition (3) can be inverted to yield the following price-cost relationswithin each sector:

pL

w = L

n(

L) +

LL

a(

L) (4)

1

w = Hn(H) + H

Ha (H) (5)

The left-hand-side of the preceding conditions are the reciprocals of the prod-uct wage earned by suppliers in the two sectors respectively. The productwage in each sector is a decreasing function of the corresponding measureof inequality.

Equation (4, 5) yields the following equation for ratio of prices of thetwo goods to their respective unit costs:

pL = Ln (L) + L

La (L)

Hn(H) + H

Ha (H)

(6)

Note that the right-hand-side is increasing L and decreasing in H. Hence(6) expresses a relation between relative factor returns within the two sec-tors, and the price pL of product L relative toH. This can be expressed asfollows:

L = (H;pL). (7)

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For any given product price pL, it expresses a monotone increasing relation

between relative factor returns within the two sectors. And for any givenH, it expresses a monotone increasing relation between pL and L.

Various properties of this relationship will prove useful later. For nowwe note one property in particular.

Lemma 1 dLdH1(H;pL)> 1 wheneverL H.

Assumption 1 plays an important role here. Since sector L is less inten-sive in its use of middleman ability relative to suppliers, an equal increasein cost of ability relative to suppliers in the two sectors will cause unit costin the L-sector to increase by less than in the H-sector, if the two sectors

face the same relative factor costs to start with. Hence the relative costof ability must rise by more in the L-sector if the ratio of unit costs is toremain unchanged. A fortiori the same will be true if the relative cost ofability is higher in sector L to start with.

2.3 Quality Moral Hazard Problem

Customers do not observe the quality of the product at the point of sale. Weassume they value only the high quality version of the product, and obtain noutility from the low quality version. Middlemen will be tempted to producethe low quality version which enables them to produce and sell more to

unsuspecting customers. The short-run benefits of such opportunism can beheld in check by possible loss of the sellers reputation. With probabilityi,a middleman selling a low-quality item in sector i will be publicly exposed(say by a product inspection agency or by investigating journalists).10 Inthis event the middlemans brand-name reputation is destroyed, and theagent in question is forever barred from entrepreneurship in either sector.

In equilibrium, customers will purchase only from middlemen for whomthe threatened loss of reputation is sufficient to deter short-term oppor-tunism. Hence in order for a middleman with skill a to be able to operatein sectori, the following incentive constraint must be satisfied:

iwa

1 iwzia + [i

w

1 + (1 i)

iwa

1 ], (8)

where (0, 1) denotes a common discount factor for all agents. The left-hand-side of (8) is the present value of producing and selling the high qualityversion of good i for ever. The first term on the right-hand-side, iwzia

10This applies independently at each date that the low-quality item is sold.

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represents the short-term profit that can be attained by the middleman upon

deviating to low quality. With probabilityi, this deviation results in themiddleman losing her reputation, in which case the agent is forced to workas a supplier thereafter. With the remaining probability the middlemansreputation remains intact.

The incentive constraint can be equivalently expressed as

a mi/i (9)

where

mi i

i+ (1 )(1 zi)>1

is a parameter representing the severity of the moral hazard problem insectori.

Equation (9) represents areputational economy of scale, which also trans-lates into a sector-specific entry barrier in terms of entrepreneurial ability.Intuitively, more able middlemen produce and earn profits at a higher scale,while the consequences of losing ones reputation are independent of abil-ity. The stake involved in losing reputation is thus proportional to theentrepreneurs ability, which has to be large enough for the agent to be acredible seller of a high-quality good. The implicit assumption here is thatcustomers can infer quality from observing the size of the corresponding firmand existing prices, by checking whether the incentive constraint is satisfied.

Alternatively, similar outcomes will be realized in the long run through anevolutionary process, even if customers are not so well-informed. Middle-men not meeting the incentive constraint will provide shoddy goods andwill eventually get weeded out, while those meeting the incentive constraintstand no risk of losing their reputation.

The sector-specific entry barriers represent elements of a specific factormodel. However unlike most specific-factor models, these barriers are en-dogenously determined. For instance, the ability threshold for entry intoa particular sector is decreasing in i, the relative earnings of middlemenwithin that sector. The reason is simple: a higher i means the middlemanmargin is higher relative to earnings of suppliers in sector i, so middlemen

have more to lose if their reputations are destroyed.Note also thatmi > 1 implies that entrepreneurs with ability above the

required threshold for sectori will strictly prefer to be middlemen in sectori rather than work as a supplier. The per period profit from the formeroption is iwa wmi > w if (9) is satisfied.

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The seriousness of the moral hazard problem in good i is represented by

mi, which is a function of exogenous parameters. One can contrast threecases:

(A) mL > mH: the L-good is more prone to moral hazard.

(B)mL < mH: the H-good is more subject to moral hazard.

(C)mL = mH: both goods are equally prone.

Consider the context where L and Hcorrespond to a farm good and high-tech good respectively. Case A pertains to the situation where quality moralhazard problems are larger in the farm good, owing to problems in quality

control or regulation of these goods, and relative lack of product warrantiesfor farm goods compared with high-tech durable goods. The H-good ismore durable; it is produced in a more automated and regulated productionprocess which is easier to inspect. It thus allows less scope for skimpingon labor or other essential raw material requirements. An offsetting factorwould be the greater technological complexity of these goods, combining alarger number of components in the production process. This may lead tohigh costs of ensuring high quality, as emphasized in the O-ring theory ofKremer (1993). Hence it is not clear on a priorigrounds which of the threecases is the most plausible.

While there is some evidence (reviewed in Section 5) suggesting Case A

is plausible, it is fragmentary and far from conclusive. The analysis turnsout to be simpler in cases A and C where mL mH, so the rest of theanalysis below focuses on these two cases. It turns out that results similarto Case A also obtain in case B provided some additional conditions on thetechnology are satisfied. For the sake of brevity we therefore do not includeanalysis of Case B , and refer the interested reader for a detailed treatmentin the previous version of this paper (Bardhan et al. (2012), Section 4).

3 Occupational Choices and Factor Market Equi-

librium

We break up the analysis of competitive equilibrium into two steps. First wetake product prices as given, and derive the resulting equilibrium of factormarkets: occupational choices and the market for production workers, whichcomprise the supply-side of the economy. This forms the topic of this section.In the next section we shall close the model by bringing in consumer demandsand analysing the determination of product prices.

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Definition: Given pL the price of good L relative to H, a factor market

equilibrium of the economy is a level of producer earnings w and relativefactor returns within the two sectors L, Hsuch that: (i) every agent (takingthese returns as given) selects between different occupations (i.e., supplierin either sector, L-sector middleman, H-sector middleman) to maximizeearnings subject to incentive constraints represented by (9); (ii) middlemenwithin each sector decide on how many suppliers to contract with; and (iii)the market for suppliers clears.

The analysis of factor market equilibria proceeds as follows. Relativefactor returns in the two sectors define the entry thresholds into each sector,which determine the occupations that any given agent can feasibly choose

from while respecting incentive constraints. Agents select between occupa-tional options to maximize their earnings. The allocation of agents acrossoccupations combined with output prices and the earnings of suppliers deter-mines demand for suppliers from middlemen in each sector. The aggregatedemand must equal the mass of agents that do not meet the entry thresholdsfor entrepreneurship in either sector.

We shall represent the factor market equilibrium by the intersection oftwo conditions involving the relative factor returns in the two sectors: onewhich corresponds to clearing of the factor markets, the other to the profitmaximization condition (6). We start with the former.

3.1 Relationship between L, H

Start by condering Case A where the L good is subject to more moralhazard (mL > mH). We shall later describe what happens in Case C, whichis obtained upon considering the limiting case where mL converges to mHfrom above.

First we take the relative factor returns in different sectors as given,and derive occupational choices of agents in the economy. The equilibriumof the factor market is illustrated graphically in Figure 1, in terms of therelationship between relative factor returns in the two sectors. There arefour different situations to consider.

Region A1: L HmLmH

Since we are in Case A where mLmH > 1, it follows that in this situationL > Halso holds. This implies that entrepreneurship in sector L is moreprofitable than in sectorH. The entry threshold for this sector is also lower,as mLL H implies that the L-sector is more profitable. On the otherhand, the entry threshold is higher in the L-sector: aL= mL/L > mH/H=aH. So agents witha aL will choose to becomeL-sector middlemen, whileagents with a [aH, aL) are unable to enter the L-sector and so have to becontent with becoming H-sector middlemen. And agents witha < aH be-come suppliers.

Consider the relation between relative factor returns in the two sectorsthat must hold for the market for suppliers to clear. This relationship isdownward-sloping, because an increase in the relative factor return in eithersector increases excess demand for suppliers. To see this, note that a risein Hhas two effects: (i) it it lowers the entry threshold into the H-sector,inducing some suppliers to enter theH-sector as a middleman, and (ii) eachincumbentH-middleman wants to contract with more suppliers. A rise inthe L-sector relative factor returns also has two effects: (i) it causes theability entry threshold for the L-sector to fall, motivating some middlemento switch from the H to the L-sector. Owing to Assumption 1 and thehypothesis that L > H, L-sector middlemen demand more suppliers than

the H-sector middlemen. So the switch of entrepreneurs between the twosectors increases excess demand for suppliers. (ii) This is accentuated bythe rise in demand for suppliers by incumbent L-sector middlemen.

This region will be of particular interest in the subsequent analysis sincerelative factor returns are not equalized across the two sectors. Middlemen intheH-sector would prefer to locate in the L-sector but cannot because theycannot offer credible quality assurance if they were to produce the L-good.If this situation happens to prevail, the model ends up exhibiting featuresof a specific factor model, owing to the restrictions on the freedom of someentrepreneurs of intermediate ability to cross sectors. These restrictions ariseendogenously in the model: changes in relative factor returns will cause

entry thresholds to change, allowing some (but not all) entrepreneurs tomove across sectors.

Region A3: H=L

L = H=,say, implies that entrepreneurs are indifferent between the twosectors. The L-sector involves a higher entry requirement, as aL = mL/ >

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mH/ = aH. Hence agents witha [aH, aL) have no option but to enter

sector H as a middleman, while those with a aL can enter either of thetwo sectors. The equilibrium in this case will involve a fraction of those witha aL choosing to become middlemen in sector L, the remaining going tosector H. This fraction must be such as to permit the supplier market toclear. This in turn translates into an upper and lower bound for the commonrelative factor return, as shown in the proof of Lemma 2 of the Appendix.

This region involves equal relative factor returns across the two sectors,thus corresponding to a non-specific factor setting. The relationship betweenthe relative factor returns is upward-sloping (in contrast to Region A2): itcoincides with part of the 45 degree line of equality in Figure 1.

Region A4: H> L

H > L implies that sector H is more profitable for middlemen. Also theentry threshold in sector H is lower. In this case nobody wants to be amiddleman in sector L. Those with ability a aH enter sector H, therest become suppliers. Here the economy specializes in production of theH-good.

These four regions exhaust the different possibilities under Case A. Fig-ure 1 shows the relationship between relative factor returns in the two sectorsconsistent with clearing of the factor market in Case A. For future reference,

we shall denote this relationship by the equation

L = (H). (10)

It can be checked (see the detailed proof of Lemma 2 presented in the Ap-pendix) that this function depends on parameters , mL, mH but is inde-pendent of pL. This function is well defined for H <

3H, and is not a

monotone relationship: it is decreasing below 2Hbut increasing thereafter.The downward-sloping part corresponding to Region A2 is the non-classicalregion where relative factor returns are not equalized across sectors. Theupward-sloping part corresponding to Region A3 coincides with the lineof equality, so this is the classical region where relative factor returns areequalized. The greater the relative severity mLmH of the moral hazard problemin the L-sector, the greater the range occupied by the non-classical region.

Case C: H=L

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H

L

L = H

L= mLmH

H

1H 2H

3H

Figure 1: Relation Between L and H for Factor Market Clearing

The analysis for this case is obtained upon considering the analysis of CaseA and taking the limit of mL as it approaches mH from above. The re-gion covered by Region A2 then disappears. If the economy produces bothgoods, factor returns must lie entirely in Region A3, and relative returns tomiddlemen must be equalized between the two sectors.

3.2 Factor Market Equilibrium

We are now in a position to characterize the factor market equilibriumfor any given pL, by putting together the condition that the supplier mar-ket clears (which incorporates reputation effects, occupational and sectoralchoices by entrepreneurs), with the relation between prices and costs repre-senting profit maximization by active middlemen in each sector.

The former is represented by the relation between relative factor returnsthat clears the factor market. The latter is represented by the upward-

sloping relation (6) between relative factor returns in the two sector for anygiven product pricepL. Geometrically it is represented by the intersection ofthe corresponding relations between the two sets of relative factor returns.This is shown in Figure 2 for different values ofpL.

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Lemma 2 (a) For any given pL > 0, a factor market equilibrium exists

and is unique.

(b) In Case A wheremL > mH, there exist thresholdsp1L > p

2L > p

3L such

that:

(i) Belowp3L the economy specializes in producing goodHwhile abovep1L it specializes in good L. Between p

1L and p

3L both goods are

produced.

(ii) WhenpL is betweenp2L andp

3L, relative factor returns are equal-

ized in the two sectors (i.e., the equilibrium lies in Region A3).

(iii) When pL is between p1L and p

2L, the relative return of middle-

men is strictly higher in theL-sector (i.e., the equilibrium lies inRegion A2).

(c) In Case C where mL = mH, the preceding results obtain except thatp1L = p

2L, so (iii) does not apply and the equilibrium lies in Region A3

whenever both goods are produced.

Existence follows from the need for the price-cost relation (6) to inter-sect the factor-market clearing relationship at least once, while uniquenessfollows from the steepness property of the former relation established inLemma 1. The rest of the results in Lemma 2 follow straightforwardly from

the description of the factor-market clearing condition.The distribution of earnings across agents with varying abilities in thecase where the equilibrium lies in Region A2 is illustrated in Figure 3. Agentswith ability below the entry threshold aH for the H-sector are supplierswho earn w. Between the thresholds aH and aL for the two sectors, theagents are H-sector middlemen, earning Hwa. By definition of the thresh-old aH =

mHH

, it follows that the earning of a H-sector middleman at thisthreshold equalswmH, which strictly exceedsw asmH>1. Hence there is adiscrete upward jump in earnings at this ability threshold for entrepreneur-ship. There is a similar discrete upward jump in earnings at the threshold aLfor entry of middlemen into the L-sector, owing to the difference in relative

factor returns between the two sectors. The highest incomes accrue to mid-dlemen in the L-sector, who manage the largest businesses in the economy.They are followed byH-sector middlemen, who manage smaller businesses,and finally suppliers who work as producers in both sectors.

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L

H1H 2H

3H

p1

L p2L

p3L

L= mLmH

H

L = H

Region A1Region A2

Region A3

Region A4

Figure 2: Factor Market Equilibrium: Case A

w

wmH

wmL

aH aLa

wHa

wLa

Figure 3: Income Distribution across Agents with Varying Abilities: RegionA2 Equilibrium

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3.3 Comparative Static Properties of the Factor Market Equi-

librium: Validity of the Stolper-Samuelson Result

We are now in a position to consider the first key question of the paper:when does the Stolper-Samuelson relation hold? Specifically, what are theimplications of changing product prices on relative returns to different fac-tors? We focus on cases corresponding to lack of complete specialization ineither good, i.e., where pL lies between p

1L and p

3L.

Proposition 1 (a) If the factor market equilibrium is in Region A2 (wheremiddlemen earn more relative to suppliers in the L-good sector com-pared with the H-good sector), a small increase in pL will raise the

earnings of middlemen relative to producers in theL-sector, and lowerit in theH-sector.

(b) If the equilibrium is in Region A3 with equal relative factor returns inthe two sectors, a small increase inpL will lower the relative return ofmiddlemen equally in both sectors.

Part (a) shows that the Stolper-Samuelson result is reversed in the non-classical region where relative returns of middlemen are unequal, while itcontinues to hold in the classical region where they are equal. The relationbetween output pricepL and relative returns in the two sectors is illustratedin Figure 4. Focusing on the former region, it is evident that a rise in pL

shifts the relation between L and Hcharacterizing price-cost equality inthe two sectors to the left. Since the relation between them characterizingthe factor market clearing condition is downward-sloping in Region A2, itfollows that the relative return earned by middlemen must rise in L-sectorand fall in H-sector. The price-cost relations (4,5) then imply that bothw and pLw rise. Hence the earnings of suppliers expressed in units of theH-good rises, but expressed in units of the L-good falls.11

The intuitive explanation of the increase in inequality within the L-sectoris the following. The increase in pL induces initially a rise in profitabilityof the L-sector, lowering entry thresholds into the L-sector, which allowssome middlemen to move from the H to the L-sector. This increases de-

mand for suppliers, for two reasons: (a) theL-sector employs more suppliersthan the H-sector at any given set of factor prices, and (b) each L-sectormiddleman contracts with more suppliers as a result of the rise in pL. The

11The effect on utility of suppliers thus depends on relative preferences in their con-sumption for the two goods: if biased in favor of the L-good sufficiently, they will beworse off.

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pLp3L p2L p

1L

L

H

Figure 4: Effect of Changes in pL on Relative Factor Returns

resulting upward pressure on the earnings of suppliers tends to reduce theearnings of middlemen relative to suppliers in both sectors. The drop in H-sector middleman profits will cause the demand for suppliers to slacken, assome low-abilityH-sector middlemen will exit and become suppliers, and in

addition each H-sector middleman contracts with fewer suppliers followingthe change in factor prices. The decline in earnings ofL-sector middlemencaused by increased earnings of suppliers cannot however reverse the initialincrease caused by the increase in the product price. Otherwise, a lowerL would slacken the demand for suppliers, accentuating the effect of thedecline inH. For the supplier market to clear, L must rise.

The result resembles that in an exogenous specific factor model, wherefactors cannot move across sectors. However, a key difference is that inour model entrepreneurs move between sectors in response to output pricechanges, as observed empirically in the Ugandan and Mozambique contextscited in the Introduction. The newly entering middlemen are of lower skill

than incumbents in the sector: for them to be able to function in the L-sector while meeting the moral hazard constraint, middleman returns mustrise relative to supplier earnings, since the latter serves as the punishmentpayoff associated with a loss of reputation.

The other difference from an exogenous specific factor model is that theStolper-Samuelson result holds in the classical region where factor returns

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are equalized across sectors. In Case C with equal moral hazard across

sectors, this applies to any equilibrium where both goods are produced. Inthis region there are no effective mobility barriers. The relation betweenrelative factor returns in the two sectors consistent with supplier marketclearing is upward-sloping; hence a leftward shift in the relation betweenrelative factor returns consistent with price-cost equality implies that therelative earnings of middlemen must fall in both sectors. The logic is similarto that in the mobile-factor version of the Heckscher-Ohlin model, arisingfrom the ability of (some) entrepreneurs to move freely between sectors.Entrepreneurs with skill above the threshold for theL-sector are indifferentbetween operating in the L and H sectors. A positive fraction of themare already operating in either sector. Hence it is possible for a subset of

these high ability entrepreneurs to move into the L-sector out of the H-sector, without any change in the entry thresholds for sector L. Changes inrelative earnings of middlemen result from a rise in supplier earnings, whichowes to the shift of entrepreneurs into the L-sector which generates higherdemand for suppliers. Relative earnings of middlemen go down in step inboth sectors.

The detailed distributional effects of a rise in pL in the anti-Stolper-Samuelson Region A2 are illustrated in Figure 5. This shows the distributionof earnings across agents with varying abilities, and how it changes as aresult of an increase in pL. There is a rise in incomes at the top (L-sectormiddlemen) and the bottom (suppliers), and a fall in incomes in the middle

(H-sector middlemen). Within theL-sector, inequality in earnings betweenmiddlemen and producers rises. On the other hand inequality falls withinthe H-sector.

The output and distributive impact of a rise in pL depend on inducedentry and exit effects of middlemen, which in turn depends on the localbehavior of the ability distribution. To illustrate this, consider the lim-iting case of a Leontief technology where we can ignore changes in factorproportions within any sector owing to changes in factor prices.

Proposition 2 Suppose the production function in each sector i exhibitsperfect complementarity: Xi = min{ni/

in,a/

ia} for the high-quality good,

andXi = min{ni/in, zia/ia} for the low-quality good. Suppose also that theequilibrium is in Region A2. Then a small increase inpL results in:

(i) no change in producer earningsw or outputsXL, XH in either sector,whileL rises andH remains constant, ifg(

mLL

) = 0 whileg(mHH )>0.

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w

wmH

wmL

aH aLa

wHa

wLa

Figure 5: Income Distribution Changes Resulting from Increase in pL (p2L, p

1L)

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(ii) no change inL or outputsXL, XHin either sector, whilew rises and

H falls, ifg(mHH ) = 0 whileg(mL

L )> 0.

This shows that relative rates of entry into the H and L-sectors (whichdepend on relative densities at the corresponding thresholds) influence ef-fects on outputs and the distribution of benefits between middlemen andproducers. When any one of the densities is zero, there will be no outputeffects at all. In case (i) there is no entry of middlemen into theL-sectorfollowing a rise in L owing to thinness of the ability distribution at thethreshold mLL . Hence changes in pL will be associated with a zero outputresponse, and none of the benefits of the rise inpLare passed on to suppliers.In case (ii) by contrast, L does not change at all while w rises, implying

that both middlemen and suppliers gain equally. The failure ofLto changeimplies there is no entry into the L-sector. And a zero density at the entrythreshold for the H sector implies that the rise in producer earnings doesnot lead to any exit of middlemen out of the H-sector into the category ofsuppliers. It follows that output effects of trade integration result only whendensities at the corresponding entry thresholds are strictly positive in bothsectors.

3.4 Effect of Changes in Ability Endowment on Factor Mar-

ket Equilibrium: Validity of the Rybczynski result

We now examine how comparative advantage varies with relative factorendowments. This is the issue addressed by the Rybczynski Theorem inclassical trade theory.

Consider the effect of an increase in , the proportion of agents in theeconomy with skills. As shown in Figure 6, the L H frontier corre-sponding to the factor market-clearing condition (10) shifts inwards, owingto the resulting tightening of demand for suppliers. Excepting the case thatH = L is maintained before and after the change in , both L and Hfall. What is the effect on the ratio XL/XH?

Since theH-good is more intensive in its use of management services, onewould intuitively expect an increase in entrepreneurial ability endowment

in the economy to raise the production of H relative to the L-good, aspredicted by the Rybczynski theorem. This is indeed true in the classicalRegion A3. From (19) which is independent of, it is evident that a rise in leaves the relative returns to the two factors unchanged. Hence the entrythresholds into the two sectors and the demand for suppliers from eachactive entrepreneur of the same ability are unaffected. Since the L-sector

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H

L

Figure 6: Effect of Increase in on Factor Market Equilibrium

uses management services less intensively, it follows that the production ofthe L-good must fall, in order to allow the factor market to clear.

In the non-classical Region A2, there will be an additional effect of achange in on relative factor returns in the two sectors. An increase in increases excess demand for suppliers, which tends to increase the earningsof producers. Since theL-sector uses management services less intensively,this tends to lower the relative return earned by middlemen in the L-sectorby more than in the H-sector. However, the ratio LH may still go up, if it

was high enough to start with.12 In that case, we obtain a countervailingeffect which can raise XLXH.

To see this concretely, we consider the following example, where thedensity of the ability distribution does not fall too fast, and the productionfunctions for both sectors have constant and equal elasticity of substitution.

Proposition 3 Assume that a2g(a)d(a) is increasing ina and production func-

tion fori= L, Hexhibit constant, equal elasticity of substitution(0):

Xi = Fi(ni, ai) = (k1/

i

a1

i

+ n1

i

)

1 (11)

with kH > kL (to ensure Assumption 1 is satisfied). Then in the factormarket equilibrium:

12Specifically, the tighter market for suppliers tends to lower H, and the effect on the

ratio LH

of a change in H isd(LH

)

dH= 1

H[ dLdH

LH

] which is negative if dLdH

< LH

, i.e.,the initial value of the relative middleman return across the two sectors is high enough.

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pL

p1L

1

p3L

p2L

XL/XH

Figure 7: Effect of Increase in on XLXH in Factor Market Equilibrium

(i) If 1 log[

kHkL

]

log[mLmH

], an increase in has the effect of decreasingXL/XH

for anypL (p3L, p

1L).

(ii) If 0 < 1log[

kHkL

]

log[mLmH

], the increase in has the effect of reducing

XL/XH for anyp (p3L, 1). Moreover, there exists pL (1, p

1L) such

thatXL/XH is increasing in for anyp > pL.

The proof is provided in the Appendix. The Proposition shows that XLXHfalls if the elasticity of substitution is large (case (i)) and otherwise for valuesof pL below 1, but not for values of pL close enough to p

1L. In the latter

case the return earned by middlemen relative to producers in theL-sector issufficiently high to start with that it increases as a result of the increase inthe economys endowment of entrepreneurial ability. This is strong enoughto cause the relative production of good L to rise. Figure 7 provides anillustration of the effect on XLXH. In the context of the open economy, thiswill provide an instance where the Leontief paradox appears, if a North andSouth country differ only in their ability endowments.

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4 Economy-wide Equilibrium

4.1 Autarkic Economy

We start by considering an economy which is closed to trade, as a preludeto the analysis of open economies.

We close the model of the autarkic economy by specifying the demandside. There is a representative consumer with a homothetic utility functionU=U(DH, DL), whereDH, DL denote consumption of the two goods. Therelative demand function is then given by

DL/DH=(pL)

where (pL) is continuous and strictly decreasing in pL. We assume thatlimpL0 (pL) = and limpL (pL) = 0.

The economy-wide equilibrium is represented by equality of relative sup-ply and relative demand:

DL/DH=(pL) =XL/XH (12)

where the dependence of relative supply XLXH onpL is provided by the factormarket equilibrium described in the previous section.

Lemma 3 An autarkic equilibrium always exists, and is unique. It must

satisfypL (p3

L, p1

L).

This follows from the fact that relative demand is continuous and strictlydecreasing in pL.

13 An autarky equilibrium (pL, L, H, w) is characterizedby conditions of profit-maximization (4), (5); the factor market clearing con-dition (10), and the product-market clearing condition (12). It is illustratedin Figure 8.

Now consider the effect on the autarky equilibrium of increasing, whichwill be helpful in determining patterns of comparative advantage when weextend the model to an open economy setting. While the effects of varyingon XLXH in the factor market equilibrium were seen above to be quite compli-

cated, it turns out that the distributional effect on the autarkic equilibriumis quite simple: inequality within both sectors fall.

13Relative supply is well-defined (owing to uniqueness of the factor market equilibrium)forpL (p

3L, p

1L), and over this range is continuous and strictly increasing inpL. Moreover,

as pL tends to p3L, relative supply of the L-good tends to 0 while relative demand is

bounded away from zero. And as pL tends to p1L, relative supply ofL tends to , while

relative demand is bounded.

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If the South has a comparative advantage in the L-good, trade inte-

gration will induce a rise in pL in the South, with distributive effects asdescribed in Proposition 1. If relative factor earnings differ across sectors,relative returns of middlemen will rise within the L-sector and fall in theH-sector in the South, and the opposite happens in the North. Hence theinitial gap in inequality in theL-sector across the two countries will be ac-centuated, while that in theH-sector will shrink. On the other hand, if bothcountries are operating in the classical region with equal factor returns inthe L and H-sectors, they will decline in the South and rise in the North:in this case factor prices tend to equalize.

We summarize these results below.

Proposition 4 Suppose the South has a comparative advantage in the L-good.

(a) If factor returns differ across sectors (i.e., Region A2 applies) withinboth countries under autarky and trade integration, the gap betweeninequality in the L-sector across the two countries grows while thegap between inequality in the H-sector narrows as a result of tradeintegration. In this case free trade must be associated with unequal

factor returns in each sector across countries.

(b) If factor returns are equal across the two sectors (i.e., Region A3 ap-plies) under autarky and trade integration in both countries, the gap be-

tween inequality of earnings within either sector across countries nar-rows as a result of trade integration. In this case free trade must beassociated with equalization of factor returns across countries.

4.3 Offshoring

If middlemen in the North earn less relative to producers as a result offailure of factor prices to equalize with trade, Northern middlemen will havean incentive to offshore production to the South. The incentive to offshorecan be measured by the difference in profits between the two countries earnedby a middleman of given ability.14 Our preceding results imply that trade

integration will cause the incentive for North-South offshoring in the L-sector to go up, and in the H-sector to go down, when Region A2 applies

14Without loss of generality, a Northern middleman producing in the South will sellin Southern markets. This is obvious if transport costs are high enough to render tradeunprofitable. If transport costs are low enough to generate trade, the difference in pricesof any good across countries will equal the transport cost, implying that entrepreneurswill be indifferent between selling in either country.

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and the South has a comparative advantage in the L-good.15 Hence our

model predicts complementarity between trade integration and North-Southoffshoring in the L-sector, and substitutability in the H-sector.

We now examine the equilibrium implications of this type of offshoring,when there are zero costs to offshore, in addition to free trade in goods.The following proposition shows that the resulting equilibrium is identical

to that in the completely integrated economy with G S+N

2 , with factorprices equal across the two economies.

Proposition 5 With free trade and costless offshoring, the equilibrium isequivalent to that in the completely integrated economy withG proportionof skilled agents. In this equilibrium, relative earnings of middlemen in each

sector are equalized across countries. If the Southern country has compar-ative advantage in the L-good under autarky, complete integration relativeto autarky causes relative earnings of middlemen to fall (resp. rise) in eachsector in the South (resp. North).

In the integrated equilibrium, the absence of any trade or offshoring costsimplies that entrepreneurs are indifferent which country to locate their op-erations. This implies that the structure of trade is indeterminate. Thisindeterminacy would be resolved in the presence of small trading and off-shoring costs. Since the North has a higher endowment of entrepreneurialability, net outsourcing from the North must be larger.

Proposition 5 indicates that the distributional effect of full integrationdiffers sharply from trade integration when the latter is associated with factorprice disequalization. If the South operates in Region A2 under autarky,trade integration raises the relative earnings of middlemen in the L-sectorwhile complete integration lowers it. The reason is that in Region A2 thereare restrictions on entry of middlemen into sector L, who must come fromthe pool of Southern entrepreneurs. These entry restrictions are relaxedunder trade integration only if the relative earnings of middlemen in thissector increases. With complete integration on the other hand, high abilityentrepreneurs from the North can enter the L-sector in the South. So relativemiddleman returns in the Southern L-sector do not have to rise to induce

15We have shown in this case that the South-North difference in inequality within theL-sector rises and theH-sector falls, as a result of trade integration. It is easy to checkthat the same property holds for the difference in profits in each sector: e.g., profits insector L per unit of ability equals Lw =

LHn +H

Ha

, using the price-cost relation (5) for

the H sector. It follows that profits rise in the South because L rises while H falls.Conversely profits fall in the North asL falls and H rises.

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this entry. The fact that middlemen earn more in the South motivates

Northern entrepreneurs to offshore operations to the South, which drivesdown middleman earnings in the South.

5 Related Literature

5.1 Related Empirical Evidence

Berges and Casellas (2007) provide evidence from Argentinian consumer sur-veys showing the greater importance of brand names compared with labels,seals and certification in consumer perceptions of food quality. Roth andRomeo (1992) and Chiang and Masson (1988) describe the role of reputa-

tions of countries-of-origin in consumer perceptions. Rauch (2001) providesa survey of evidence concerning the role of social and business networks intrade, and intermediaries that arise in the absence of such networks. Baner-

jee and Duflo (2000), Dalton and Goksel (2009), and Machiavello (2010) testmodels of reputation formation and their role in exports of Indian software,of cars to the US, and Chilean wines to the UK respectively. Hudson andJones (2003) discuss problems faced by developing countries in signallingtheir quality to export markets, owing to the kinds of goods they specializein, and lower rates of ISO-9000 certification.

Relatively little direct evidence is available concerning how product qual-ity moral hazard problems vary across different categories of goods. Scan-

dals over safety of Chinese exports of farm-goods and toys have eruptedin recent years, highlighting quality concerns for less skill-intensive goodsexported from developing countries. Using data spanning a large numberof countries, Hudson and Jones (2003) show ISO-9000 certification ratesare highest in electrical and optical equipment, basic metal and fabricatedmetal products, machinery and equipment sectors. Conversely, agricultureand farm products, textiles, wood and pharmaceuticals have the lowest ac-creditation rates. Accreditation take up rates are also lowest in less de-veloped countries. In similar vein, Dobrescu (2009, Table 1) shows that14% of Slovenian manufacturing exporting firms in textiles/tobacco, wear-ing apparel, leather/shoes, wood between 1995-2005 had ISO certification,

compared with 36% in more capital intensive sectors (chemicals, rubber, ma-chinery, communication equipment, instruments, motor vehicles). However,these facts are only suggestive of the relative extent of moral hazard prob-lems in different sectors, since direct evidence concerning this is intrinsicallydifficult to obtain.

An alternative is to examine the extent to which the ratio of middleman

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margins to retail prices vary across sectors, as our theory indicates this to be

a key determinant of whether classical trade theory results are valid. Arndtet al. (2000) provide evidence of high middleman margin rates in agricul-ture, food processing, textiles and leather in Mozambique ranging from 36%to 111%. In contrast these ranged between 11 and 26% in machinery, metals,fuels and chemicals, paper, wood and mining. Nicita (2004) finds substan-tially lower rates of pass-through of border prices to producer prices in thecase of cereals (32%), fruits (22%), vegetables (14%), oils and fats (22%),and sugar (26%), compared with manufactured goods (67%), textiles andapparel (54%). These suggest that middlemen margins are substantiallyhigher in less skill intensive goods which are typically exported from Southto North. However, most of these do not adjust for transport, storage and

distribution costs which tend to be higher for farm goods produced in re-mote areas. Nor do they adjust for risks borne by middlemen owing to pricevolatility, or quality defects in procured farm goods.

Corrections for transport and storage costs are made by Fafchamps andHill (2008) in their study of gaps between border and farmgate prices forcoffee in Uganda. Using monthly data they show only a small fraction ofincreases in export prices during 2002-03 was passed on to coffee farmers, andthat the rising shares of middlemen could not be explained by accompanyingchanges in transport or storage costs. Instead, the main explanation theyadvance is consistent with the predictions of our theory: rising demand forcoffee exports induced entry of a less efficient set of middlemen. Similar

findings are reported by McMillan, Rodrik and Welch (2002) in the contextof rising trader margins for cashews in Mozambique during the 1990s: afalling ratio of farm-gate to export prices was accompanied by an increasein the number of traders, especially informal unlicensed traders buying insmaller quantities directly from farmers homes.

5.2 Related Models

Antras and Costinot (2010, 2011) and Chau, Goto and Kanbur (2010) de-velop similar models of middlemen margins based on an alternative modelof search. These models assume that producers cannot sell to consumers di-

rectly, and must search for middlemen who can. These models are moreappropriate for matching and trade in anonymous markets, rather thancontexts involving repeat transactions and long-term supplier relationships.The allocation of bargaining power between producers and middlemen inthese theories depends on the relative number of agents on either side of themarket. The number of active middlemen is either exogenous, in which case

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trade liberalization has no effect on intra-sector inequality. Alternatively,

the number of active middlemen is endogenously determined by a free entrycondition, where middlemen exercise market power and must earn marginsto cover their fixed costs. In this case trade liberalization results in increas-ing entry of middlemen into the export sector which lowers their bargainingpower, implying that the share of middlemen declines as border prices rise.This is opposite to what our model predicts, and contrary to the evidence inFafchamps and Hill (2008) or McMillan, Rodrik and Welch (2002). More-over, Antras and Costinot show effects of offshoring by Northern tradersmay render Southern producers worse off, if the bargaining power of theformer is large enough. This is in contrast to our model where offshoringalways makes Southern producers better off. A common prediction, on the

other hand, is that Southern traders will be worse off as a result of off-shoring. Clearly, models based respectively on search and on reputationshave different implications for distributive effects of integration. This im-plies there is scope for using empirical evidence to discriminate among them,an important task for future research.

Similar to many recent trade models and consistent with empirical ev-idence (e.g., see the survey by Harrison, McLaren and McMillan (2010)),our model predicts Southern entrepreneurs locating in the export sector areof higher ability than other entrepreneurs, and earn correspondingly more.An obvious extension of our model wherein reputations depend not just onthe product characteristics but also the markets in which they are sold

specifically, where international reputations are harder to build than do-mestic ones would imply that the productivity thresholds for exportingwould be higher than for domestic production in allcountries, not just in theSouth. In such a context, trade integration would generally raise inequalitybetween exporting and non-exporting firms. In this respect our approachis similar to Helpman, Itzhoki and Redding (2010), in which trade liberal-ization may raise inequality by inducing high productivity firms to searchmore intensively for high ability workers.

In a similar vein, Costinot and Vogel (2010) model matching between het-erogeneous productive tasks and workers of heterogeneous abilities. Howevertheir analysis generates generalized Stolper-Samuelson predictions when the

source of trade is differences in factor endowments across countries. Mat-suyama (2007) provides an alternative approach wherein the activity of ex-porting involving transport, finance, marketing and communication isitself more skill-intensive than production. A rise in export activities owingto improved technology of transport or communication can then end up in-creasing the demand for skilled workers, and eventually the skill premium.

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Verhoogen (2008) provides an alternative theory and supporting empirical

evidence that cars marketed in the US are of higher quality than those inMexico (owing to non-homothetic preferences), whence increased exports ofMexican-produced cars to the US following an exchange rate devaluationof the Mexican peso generated higher demand and relative wages of skilledMexican workers. Zhu and Trefler (2005) provide evidence with a cross-country panel wherein the rise in skill premia across middle income anddeveloping countries was positively correlated with a shift in export sharestowards more skill-intensive goods. All these approaches stress the correla-tion between firm productivity and export activities, which generates risinginequality as an outcome of trade integration. This feature is shared by ourapproach, though it operates through a different (reputational) mechanism.

Other trade models with endogenous sorting of agents of heterogeneousabilities into different sectors include Mussa (1982), Matsuyama (1992),Ohnsorge and Trefler (2007) and Grossman (2004). Our theory differs inone important qualitative respect from all of these models: there is a dis-continuous rise in profits of entrepreneurs at the thresholds for entry intoeach sector in our theory, while agent returns vary continuously with abilityin the latter.

Differences between effects of trade integration and offshoring have beenstressed by a number of recent papers, for reasons quite different from thosein this paper. Feenstra and Hanson (1996) pioneered the literature on off-sourcing and inequality, showing how inequality could rise in both North

and South as a consequence of offshoring low-skill tasks in the North to theSouth where these are relatively high-skilled. Such a mechanism relies onheterogeneity of production worker skills, something our model abstractsfrom. In a model with a continuum of worker skills, Grossman and Rossi-Hansberg (2008) elaborate how offshoring can benefit domestic workers viaemployer cost-savings through better matching, that are passed on to work-ers in a competitive labor market. Antras, Garicano and Rossi-Hansberg(2006) and Kremer and Maskin (2003) study related models in which agentsof heterogeneous abilities sort into hierarchical teams. Inequality rises inthe South in these models owing to the matching of high ability agents inthe South with worker teams from the North. Karabay and McLaren (2010)

examine effects on risk and long term employer-employee contracting thatcoexist with spot markets. Our theory abstracts from risk considerations,or the possibility of some production tasks within any given sector being off-shored while others are not. Instead, we emphasize how offshoring and tradeintegration may have opposite effects on inequality between entrepreneursand workers, owing to differences in the associated entry patterns and pools

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of potential entrepreneurs that can enter any given sector.

Wynne (2005) and Antras and Caballero (2009, 2010) present trade mod-els with financial frictions which affect production of one good more thananother, with North countries less subject to financial frictions than Southcountries. Our model is based instead on frictions arising from quality moralhazard which affect different goods in different ways, where the nature of themoral hazard problem is assumed to be the same between North and South.These give rise to some features which are similar, though there are manydifferences in the detailed way in which these appear. Other shared featuresinclude the possibility of a Leontief paradox, complementarity between tradeand capital flows, and the role of wealth distributions.

6 Concluding Comments

We have constructed a a general equilibrium model of trade based on mid-dlemen margins which arise endogenously to provide incentives to maintainproduct quality reputations. Entry thresholds, occupational and sectoralchoices of agents are endogenously determined in an otherwise fully com-petitive model. The allocation of agents between production work and en-trepreneurship is explained by their underlying endowment of entrepreneurialability. In particular, the model explains why producers cannot directly sellto consumers their lack of a credible reputation for quality and must

sell to intermediaries instead, those who have the requisite reputation.If the severity of moral hazard problem differs markedly between differentgoods, middleman earnings relative to producer earnings must also vary in acorresponding way. The lack of equalization of relative factor returns is as-sociated with restrictions on movement of middlemen across sectors, and thedistributive effects of trade liberalization end up resembling a Ricardo-Vinerspecific factor model. Otherwise, there is enough intersectoral mobility toensure that classical results of the mobile factor Heckscher-Ohlin model re-sults obtain. Empirical evidence from some African countries where risingexport prices were accompanied by rising gaps between export and farmgateprices are consistent with the predictions of the model, suggesting the need

for fuller empirical testing of the model in future research.The model explains incentives for Northern countries to offshore theirproduction to Southern countries, and predicts the distributive implicationsof such offshoring to be the opposite of trade liberalization. Pass-throughand output responsiveness to trade liberalization depends on underlyingdistribution of entrepreneurial ability which determines responsiveness of

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entry into middlemen businesses in response to increasing profit margins.

The model suggests that policies encouraging entry responsiveness, such asregulatory reforms, or development of entrepreneurial abilities can enhancegrowth and pro-poor effects of globalization.

We abstracted from the realistic possibility that reputations may bemarket or country-specific in addition to being commodity-specific. For in-stance it may be harder to maintain a reputation in international marketscompared with domestic markets, owing to the role of information networksthat underlie word-of-mouth reputations. Such a model would create higherproductivity thresholds for exports compared with domestic sales for anygiven commodity, providing an alternative to a number of recent explana-tions for export premium in productivity and earnings. Yet another possi-

ble extension would involve country-specific reputation thresholds, owing todifferences in product quality regulations or their enforcement across coun-tries. Such a model could be useful in examining the general equilibriumimplications of changes in regulatory policy. A rich research agenda liesahead.

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Appendix: Proofs

Proof of Lemma 1: Implicitly differentiating (6) we obtain

dLdH

=pLHaLa

= Ln + L

La

Hn + HHa

HaLa

=L+

LnLa

H+ HnHa

>1,

with the second equality using (6), and the last inequality following from Assumption 1,

L Hand the fact that LnLa

is non-decreasing in L.

Proof of Lemma 2. We start by writing the factor market clearing condition in vari-ous cases, which characterizes the relationship between relative factor returns in the twosectors, as well as the outputs in each sector.

Clearing of the factor market in Region A1 requires

[Ln (L)

La (L)]d(

mLL

) = G(mLL

) + (1 ). (14)

The production levels will be XH= 0, XL = d(mLL

)/La (L).In Region A2 the corresponding condition is

[Ln (L)

La (L)]d(

mLL

) + [Hn(H)

Ha(H)][d(

mHH

) d(mLL

)] =G(mHH

) + (1 ). (15)

In this case, production levels are:

XH=[d(aH) d(aL)]/Ha(H)

XL = d(aL)/La (L)

In Region A3, the factor market clearing conditions are (denoting the productionlevels by XL, XH respectively)

Ln ()XL+ Hn()XH=G(aH) + (1 )

La ()XL+ Ha()XH=d(aH)

These equations are equivalent to

XL = Ha()[G(aH) + (1 )]

Hn()d(aH)

Ln ()Ha () Hn()La ()

XH=La ()[G(aH) + (1 )] +

Ln ()d(aH)

Ln ()Ha () Hn()La () .

However since only agents witha aL have the option to become L-sector entrepreneurs,XL d(aL)/

La ()

which implies

[Ln ()

La ()]d(

mL

) + [Hn()

Ha()][d(

mH

) d(mLaL

)] G(mH

) + (1 ). (16)

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On the other hand, XL 0 implies

[Hn()

Ha ()]d(

mH

) G(mH

) + (1 ). (17)

Inequalities (16, 17) provide lower and upper bounds on the common . Note that (16)is the inequality version of the factor market clearing condition (15) in Region A2. Hencethe lower bound in Region A3 exactly equals the limiting relative factor returns in RegionA2 as L and Happroach each other (see Figure 1).

In Region A4 the factor market clearing condition is

[Hn(H)

Ha(H)]d(aH) =G(aH) + (1 ). (18)

The production levels areXL = 0

XH=d(aH)/Ha (H).

The entry thresholds depicted1H,2Hand

3Hin Figure 1 are defined by the solutions

to the following equations.

[Ln (

mLmH

1H)

La (mLmH

1H)]d(mH/

1H) = G(mH/

1H) + (1 )

[Ln (

2H)

La (2H)

]d(mL/2H) + [

Hn(2H)

Ha (2H)

][d(mH/2H) d(mL/

2H)] =G(mH/

2H) + (1 ).

[Hn(

3H)

Ha (3H)

]d(mH/3H) = G(mH/

3H) + (1 )

The price thresholds which mark the transition between Regions A1, A2, A3 and A4

are calculated as follows:

p1L =Ln (

mLmH

1H) + mLmH

1HLa (

mLmH

1H)

Hn(1H) +

1H

Ha (

1H)

p2L = Ln (

2H) +

2H

La (

2H)

Hn(2H) +

2H

Ha (

2H)

p3L = Ln (

3H) +

3H

La (

3H)

Hn(3H) +

3H

Ha (

3H)

Now we are in a position to describe the factor market equilibrium, where the price-cost conditions characterizing profit maximization must be satisfied along with clearing ofthe supplier market. We consider the following price ranges A1, A2, A3, A4, and refer toFigure 1.

Region A1: pL p1L

In this case, there is an equilibrium withH 1H, with complete specialization in product

L, and production levels XL = d(mLL

)/La (L), XH= 0. Since the price-cost relation (6)betweenL, Hin the two sectors is upward-sloping, it is evident there cannot be any otherequilibrium. In the interior of this range, equilibrium outputs are locally independent of

pL.

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Region A2: p1L > pL p2L

H

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