Introduction

Abstract

Abstract Over much of its development, trade theory has focused on explaining and assessing trade in end products. The international division of labor and the role of specialization are studied mainly in terms of final goods. Even the literature on intra-industry trade, which might naturally have been drawn to trade in parts and components, has tended to focus on the exchange of varieties of end products. There is, of course, a quite distinguished literature on trade in intermediate products, but its findings and insights exist more as an addendum to rather than an integral part of the main paradigm.