Un nouveau champ d'investigation pour l'économie internationale: les biens intermédiaires

摘要

Intermediate products, which constitute the bulk of international trade, have been studied in the pure theory of international trade only since 30 years. The introduction of such products in models of specialization has given the opportunity to identify theoretical weaknesses of the previous models and to derive new results. When the comparative advantage is a vertical one, free trade in intermediates increases allocative efficiency, whereas an horizontal advantage justify international trade in final products. In the perspective of these new results, new definitions of specialization and protection have to be given. Finally, the paper investigates the foundations and the results of related measures like domestic content protection and offshore assembly provisions.