New Trade Models, Same Old Gains?

Abstract

Micro-level data have had a profound infl uence on research in international trade over the last ten years. In many regards, this research agenda has been very successful. New stylized facts have been uncovered and new trade models have been developed to explain these facts. In this paper we investigate to which extent answers to new micro-level questions have affected answers to an old and central question in the field: How large are the welfare gains from trade? A crude summary of our results is: So far, not much.