Trade costs contribute to price differentials across geographically separated regions. However, when using price differential data, the identification of distance-elastic trade costs depends on how producers set prices in remote markets. To address this problem, we first empirically demonstrate that a variable markup model is more relevant than a constant markup model to describe the data variation. We then adopt a nonhomothetic preference framework to consider pricing-to-market and self-selection bias to pin down the distance effect. If these factors are not accounted for, the distance elasticity of trade costs is small. However, by incorporating these mechanisms, our empirical analysis using micro-level data reveals that the distance effect is significantly large, suggesting that the price of geographic barriers to regional trade is high.

中文翻译：

---

距离的价格：市场定价和地理障碍

贸易成本导致地理上不同地区的价格差异。然而，当使用价格差异数据时，距离弹性贸易成本的识别取决于生产者如何在偏远市场设定价格。为了解决这个问题，我们首先凭经验证明变量标记模型比常数标记模型更适合描述数据变化。然后，我们采用非同类偏好框架来考虑市场定价和自我选择偏差来确定距离效应。如果不考虑这些因素，贸易成本的距离弹性很小。然而，通过结合这些机制，我们使用微观数据的实证分析表明，距离效应非常大，表明区域贸易的地理壁垒价格很高。