演講摘要 : This paper examines the optimal export policy under Bertrand competition when the products exhibit horizontal differentiation and production costs are asymmetric. The focus of this paper is on the product-differentiation effect in the determination of the optimal export policy. It shows that when the home firm incurs higher cost and the cost difference is sufficiently large, its optimal export policy under Bertrand competition is an export subsidy rather than an export tax. In contrast, when the cost difference is sufficiently small or negative, the optimal export policy is to tax. As a result, given the horizontal differentiation of the products being endogenously determined, we show that as the cost advantage gained by the home firm is switched into cost disadvantage sufficiently, the outcome of the game moves from Eaton-Grossman tax to Brander-Spencer subsidy under Bertrand price competition. It is in this sense that we generalize the theory of strategic trade policy and claim that the result of Eaton and Grossman (1986) turns out to be a special case of this paper.
