The Jones-Kierzkowski model of global fragmentation of production draws attention to the cost and efficiency of “service links” connecting “production blocks” in different countries. Country-specific service links include transport and telecommunications infrastructure and the overall...

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the trading system in the interwar period concerning the Japanese Empire by means of border effect analysis in the gravity model. The results show sizeable and steadily increasing trading bloc border effects from the 1910s through the 1930s. This sizeable...

This paper builds a monetary model where firm entry is endogenous, thereby exposing a new channel for the transmission of monetary policy. Individuals have a choice between consuming or investing in new firms by financing a sunk entry cost. Monetary policy shocks affect the cost-benefit analysis...

If the Euro has boosted intra Euro-Area trade, what exactly in the new currency is responsible for such an effect? Most explanations focus on a decrease in exchange rate volatility or in transaction costs, receiving mixed empirical support. After briefly surveying the relevant literature, this...

This paper addresses the question whether the domino theory of regionalism is a reasonable explanation for the growth in EU membership over the past forty years. In essence, this theory states that the conclusion of a new regional trade agreement or the deepening of an existing one will induce...

Morris and Shin (2002) have shown that a central bank may be too transparent if the private sector pays too much attention to its possible imprecise signals simply because they are common knowledge. In their model, the central bank faces a binary choice: to reveal or not to reveal its...

This paper examines the relative importance of global and domestic factors as a source of macroeconomic fluctuations in Brazil from 1995 to 2004. US and Brazilian credit spreads are encompassed in a near-VAR model, including the main debt-related domestic variables. The US corporate bond spread...

This paper investigates the effects of different labor market structures on the level of unemployment. A theoretical interpretation of an open economy version of the Calmfors and Driffill framework with traded good sector and sheltered non traded good sector is presented, in which different...

This paper tests an empirical implication of Melitz (2003) in the context of falling trade costs, using the EU’s intensive liberalization phase (1993-2002) as a natural experiment. Contrary to the model’s predictions, firms that switch from non-exporting to exporting over the studied period...

This paper investigates the effects of trade reforms and antitrust enforcement on the pricing behavior of firms, shedding light on the respective contributions of these policy instruments to the shaping of competitive markets. To this end, we use a rich panel data set of more than 25,000...