Import demand has been a major research topic in international economics for the past 80 years because of its importance for analyzing trade and evaluating trade policies. The goal of this paper is to survey the literature and conduct a meta-analysis of empirical studies on import demand with the intention of clarifying the effect of economic development on income elasticity. In particular, we test the hypothesis that higher income levels are associated with a more elastic import demand. We apply a combination of parametric and non-parametric methods on estimates from a sample of 152 papers published over the period 1975–2014 and find that this relationship is significant and robust. Specifically, kernel densities of income elasticity estimates for high-income countries in North America and Europe are shown to exceed those for poorer parts of the world. The results from quantile regressions confirm this pattern and establish its robustness when controlling for the effect of model specifications.

中文翻译：

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进口需求的收入弹性：一项元调查

进口需求因其对分析贸易和评估贸易政策的重要性而成为过去 80 年来国际经济学的主要研究课题。本文的目的是调查文献并对进口需求的实证研究进行荟萃分析，旨在阐明经济发展对收入弹性的影响。特别是，我们检验了较高收入水平与更具弹性的进口需求相关的假设。我们对 1975-2014 年期间发表的 152 篇论文样本的估计值应用参数和非参数方法的组合，发现这种关系是显着且稳健的。具体来说，北美和欧洲高收入国家收入弹性估计的核密度显示超过了世界较贫穷地区的收入弹性估计值。分位数回归的结果证实了这一模式，并在控制模型规范的影响时确立了其稳健性。