A recent body of work has shown that quality of national institutions that enforce written contracts plays an important role in shaping a country’s comparative advantage. The current paper contributes to this literature by providing a comprehensive analysis of the mechanisms through which institutional frictions affect the pattern of aggregate trade flow by distinguishing its effect on the intensive and extensive margins. We find that better contracting institutions not only increase the probability of exporting (the extensive margin) but also enhance the export sales after entry (the intensive margin), particularly in industries where relationship-specific investments are most important. With around two-third to three-fourth share (depending on the definition used), the contribution of institutions along the intensive margin dominates that along the extensive margin. The benefits of improved institutions, particularly via the intensive margin, favor the less developed countries over the more developed ones. In addition, better contracting institutions increase the probability of survival of export products in more contract-intensive industries in particular. These findings are robust to measuring the intensive and extensive margins using a more granular export data based on firm-level aggregates, as well as the variety and destination based definitions.

最近的一项工作表明，执行书面合同的国家机构的质量在塑造一个国家的比较优势方面发挥着重要作用。本论文通过区分制度摩擦对集约边际和粗放边际的影响，对制度摩擦影响总贸易流动模式的机制进行了全面分析，从而为这一文献做出了贡献。我们发现，更好的承包制度不仅增加了出口的可能性（广泛边际），而且提高了进入后的出口销售额（集约边际），特别是在关系特定投资最重要的行业。大约三分之二到四分之三的份额（取决于所使用的定义），沿集约边际的制度贡献大于沿粗放边际的贡献。改进制度的好处，特别是通过集约边际，有利于欠发达国家而不是较发达的国家。此外，更好的合同制度增加了出口产品在合同密集型行业的生存概率，尤其是在合同密集型行业。这些发现对于使用基于公司层面汇总的更细粒度的出口数据以及基于品种和目的地的定义来衡量集约型和粗放型利润率是稳健的。更好的合同制度可以增加出口产品在合同密集度更高的行业中的生存概率。这些发现对于使用基于公司层面汇总的更细粒度的出口数据以及基于品种和目的地的定义来衡量集约型和粗放型利润率是稳健的。更好的合同制度可以增加出口产品在合同密集度更高的行业中的生存概率。这些发现对于使用基于公司层面汇总的更细粒度的出口数据以及基于品种和目的地的定义来衡量集约型和粗放型利润率是稳健的。