When countries change most favored nation (MFN) tariffs, partners that trade on MFN terms experience plausibly exogenous tariff changes. Using this variation, we estimate the elasticity at short and long horizons with local projections. We find of tariff-exclusive flows is ?0.76 in run, approximately ?2 run. Our long-run estimates are smaller than typical literature, it takes 7 to10 years to co...

We study the causal connection between trade and development using one of the earliest massive trade expansions in prehistory: the first systematic crossing of open seas in the Mediterranean during the time of the Phoenicians. For each point on the coast, we construct the ease with which other points can be reached by crossing open water. This connectivity differs depending on the shape of the ...

Hollywood blockbusters are usually released in the U.S. before other foreign markets. The release gaps have declined significantly over time and varied greatly across countries. While movie piracy has been suggested as an important determinant for the release gap decision of distributors, theory and evidence suggest there are other important determinants. In this paper, we use a discrete choice...

This paper documents patterns in international trade costs in processed foods for a large cross-section of developing and developed countries, during the 1976-2000 period. A trade costs index is inferred from a micro-founded gravity equation that incorporates bilateral ‘iceberg’ trade costs. For 2000, the weighted average tariff equivalent of trade costs ranges from 73% for the North to 134% fo...

This paper examines the extent to which foreign direct investment (FDI) affects child labor. Using 1995 data for 145 countries, we find that, contrary to common fears, FDI is negatively correlated with child labor. This effect, however, disappears when controlling for per capita income. After doing so, we find no robust effect of either FDI or international trade on child labor. This result is ...

Using firm-level data for three Sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries and four manufacturing industries, I examine how imports from OECD countries lead to productivity gains for domestic establishments through their knowledge absorption capabilities. I find that domestic firms with technology standards farther away from the international frontier benefit more from trade than those with technology...

This paper analyses the link between offshoring in German plants and the offshoring potential of their employees. We use information on the offshoring potential of jobs from representative task data and merge it with linked employer-employee data, for which information on different modes of offshoring behaviour is available. We empirically identify individual and plant-level determinants of off...

Using a bilateral trade equation derived from a monopolistic competition model, we investigated market access reciprocity in food trade among the US, Canada, the EU and Japan. We explore country and industry–specific market access asymmetry through the border effect approach, re-challenging the underlying main explanations. Our findings reveal marked asymmetry in reciprocal trade openness; inde...

Productivity and Size of the Export Market: Evidence for West and East German Plants, 2004 Using unique recently released nationally representative high-quality data at the plant level, this paper presents the first comprehensive evidence on the relationship between productivity and size of the export market for Germany, a leading actor on the world market for manufactured goods. It documents t...

Aim/purpose – The purpose of this paper is to analyze regional trade integration 10 Central and Eastern Europe countries (CEE-10) during the 2004-2018 period, identify regional- country-level patterns attribute them potential causes indicated by literature. Design/methodology/approach employed literature-based indicators data on CEE-10 in goods conducted a review empirical studies investigating...