Open the“Black Box”of Trade Cost——An Analytical Framework of Trade Cost

Trade cost has long been neglected by mainstream economics,it is far from establishing a sysmatic theoretical framework of trade cost even though the modeling capabilities under the assumption of monopolistic competition and increasing returns to scale have increased and factors in line with economic realities like trade costs have been taken seriously by Western theorists.Domestic scholars have not reached a consensus for the study of trade cost neither.Based on the review of related theories about trade cost in Marxist Economics,New Institutional Economics,New Classical Economics,International Trade Theories and New Economic Geography,we propose a concept oftrade costfrom the meso level which is different from the macro-levelcirculation costand the micro-leveltransaction cost,divide the composition of trade cost from different angles,summarize the existing calculation methods of trade cost,examine the impact and the mechanism of trade cost on industrial agglomeration from the spatial viewpoint,and reveal the policy implications of trade cost for domestic and international trade and coordinated regional development,in order to build a more systematic trade cost analysis framework.