Product differentiation, competition, and international trade

In this paper the two workhorse theories of international trade under imperfect competition - Krugman's taste for variety model and Brander's strategic intra-industry trade model - are integrated into a single analytical framework. A quadratic utility function allows for a nesting of these two theories by postulating a consumer taste for variety over differentiated products, where the extent of product differentiation is linked to the intensity of strategic interaction among firms. The model yields intuitive predictions on the effects of the degree of product differentiation on the volume of trade and on the composition of the gains from trade under imperfect competition.