Mishita Mehra

• PhD
• University of Richmond

We reexamine the role of increasing returns in production, central to trade and economic geography theories, focusing on the home market effect. We extend the conventional multi-industry new trade model to introduce (1) nonconstant marginal costs and (2) nonhomothetic production in factors. If factors that are more (less) intensively used in fixed...

This paper reexamines the role of increasing returns in production, central to trade and economic geography theories, focusing on the home market effect. We extend the conventional multi-industry new trade model to introduce (i) non-constant marginal costs and (ii) tradable vs. non-tradable inputs in variable and fixed cost functions. When the non-...

We develop a dynamic general equilibrium model with skilled immigration, offshore labor hiring, and intermediate input trade to study the impact of skilled immigration policy changes in the US. Consistent with the data, the model accounts for a small subset of large firms that adjust offshore labor hiring in response to skilled immigration policy c...

We develop a two-sector dynamic general equilibrium model with skilled immigration that focuses on the role of firms. The model is consistent with data on firm demand for foreign labor and firm size in the United States. Monopolistically competitive firms in the skill-intensive sector differ in productivity and a subset of relatively larger firms h...

How do industry differences influence trade patterns, in particular home market effects? We answer this question with special emphasis on scale economies generated from non-constant marginal costs. We find evidence that industries with large returns to scale from non-constant marginal costs are concentrated in large countries when non-production ac...

This paper examines the process of upgrading of the Indian garment industry through a survey of 100 firms in three clusters in Delhi National Capital Region (NCR), Tirupur, and Mumbai in 2012. Upgrading could be of three types: process, product, or functional. Product upgrading entails producing higher value added products and involves steps taken...

With the trade normalization process between India and Pakistan gathering momentum from November 2011, new opportunities for enhancing bilateral trade have opened up between the two countries. This study estimates the trade potential between India and Pakistan and examines how this potential can be realized. Using the Trade Possibility Approach for...

A Trade Perception Survey was undertaken to understand how stakeholders engaged in India-Pakistan trade perceived impediments faced by them in realizing the trade potential between the two countries. Based on an analysis of information collected in the survey on six indicators–awareness of trade policy, ease of meeting standards, market access,...

This Trade Perception Survey was undertaken to understand how stakeholders engaged in India-Pakistan trade perceived impediments faced by them in realizing the trade potential between the two countries. Based on an analysis of information collected in the survey on six indicators – awareness of trade policy, ease of meeting standards, market access...