Summary

The present work intended to analyse the effects of an intensified international trade on small open economies with search frictions in a purely theoretical framework.1 The analysis solely focused on inter-industry trade and therefore described trade between industrialised countries and developing or newly industrialised ones. This has been justified with the example of Germany whose trade pattern with developing countries has changed between 1970 and 1993. Whereas Germany mainly imported raw material from developing countries in 1970, the share of manufactured goods on all imports increased to more than 67% in 1993 (cf. figure 2.4). Accordingly, it can be concluded that the developing countries have participated more intensively in international trade over the last twenty years.