International Trade with Lumpy Countries

Abstract

This paper explores the implications for the pattern of international trade of differences among regions within countries--what we call "lumpiness." If factors of production are sufficiently unevenly distributed across regions, then the pattern of trade of the country as a whole may depart from what it would have been had factors been evenly distributed. Thus lumpiness in the geographical distribution of factors can be a determinant of trade. We show in particular that if other determinants of trade are absent, then a country will tend to export the good that intensively uses its lumpier (i.e., more unevenly distributed) factor.