Elasticities in International Trade: Theoretical and Methodological Issues 1

Economists have devoted considerable attention to the estimation of international trade flows. Not only is there an extensive literature on the specification and estimation of equations describing these flows, but also there is a large literature surveying these studies (see, for example, Cheng (1959), Prais (1962), Kreinin (1967), Taplin (1967), Leamer and Stern (1970), Magee (1975), Stern et.al. (1976), Thompson (1981), Woodland (1982), Goldstein and Khan (1985), and Gardiner and Dixit (1986)). ²