A Survey of Literature on Research of Intra-firm Trade

Intra-firm trade arose much research interests among new trade theorists for its deep relation with contract theories, firm organization theories, investment and trade theories, empirically, some researchers tried to use statistics and survey data to do more detailed research. This paper mainly reviews the main research on intra-firm trade in recently years. Theoretically, research mainly deals with two directions: incomplete contract and firm heterogeneity. Empirically research could be conducted from three dimensions: macro, industrial and micro level, the most potential research direction could be based on abundant and detailed firm level data to acquire more practical and policy related conclusions.