Trade Liberalization, Competition and Growth

The aim of this paper is to understand whether international trade may enhance innovation and growth through an increase in competition. We develop a two-country endogenous growth model, both countries producing the same set of goods, with firm speciffic R&D and a continuum of oligopolistic sectors under Cournot competition. Since countries produce the same setof goods, trade openness makes markets more competitive, reducing prices and raising the incentives to innovate. More general, a reduction on trade barriers enhances growth by reducing domestic firms' market power.