Author

Cillian Ryan

Date of Award

1987

Degree Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy

Abstract

This thesis focuses on the problem of dimensionality in trade. It interprets the service sector as a group of agents who emerge endogenously in order to assist other agents in surmounting barriers of space, time, or information.;I develop the thesis in two stages, the first using a fixed-factor model of trade and the second using a mobile-factor version. The new results that arise in this thesis are due to two features of the model. In the fixed-factor model servicers' offer curves are linear due to the fact that they arise from technological restrictions rather than the usual utility maximizing process and in the mobile-factors model agents in each sector face different prices due to the restrictions on the exchange of goods.;In the fixed-factor model the principal results are that: All agents in a service exporting country can gain from trade while those in the service importing country can lose and the separation of agents by space, time or information is sufficient to rule out many of the unstable equilibria that arise in traditional models of trade.;In the mobile-factor model there are two results that differ from those suggested by the previous literature on transport costs and on services. The first result is that the number of agents in the service sector rise or fall as a result of a technical change and the second is that, with growth in the service sector there can be a fall in the output of goods and yet welfare for the economy can rise.;A third important result in this model pertains to the gains from trade. As well as the traditional gains associated with a move from autarky to free trade there are gains due to the elimination of a sub-optimal trading pattern that arises in autarky. Thus the move to free trade yields additional gains from trade by creating an 'as if' technical improvement in the service sector.

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