Some cultural goods, like clothes and films, are consumed socially and are thus characterized by the same consumption network externalities as languages. At the same time, producers of new cultural goods in any one country draw on the stock of ideas generated by previous cultural production in...

We construct the first direct classification of goods as luxuries or necessities that is compatible with international trade data. We then use it to test an idea that has not been tested directly in the literature: countries income distributions are important determinants of their import demand,...

We argue that the quality of institutions that enforce contracts and protect property rights influences the costs of producing high-value added (complex) versus low-value added (simple) products. Since data is hardly available for domestic transactions, we generate predictions about the...

Recent changes in comparative advantage in the largest OECD economies differ significantly from the predictions of Heckscher-Ohlin-Vanek theory. Japan's rising share of OECD machinery exports and the improvement in the comparative advantage of the USA and Germany in heavy industry were...

We analyze productivity enhancing public expenditure in a spatial economic model with labor mobility, firm-specific increasing returns to scale, and transport costs. Building on Krugman (1991), Fujita, Krugman and Venables (1999) and Redding (2016), we compare optimal investment and tax policies...

We argue that the quality of institutions that enforce contracts and protect property rights influences the costs of producing high-value added (complex) versus low-value added (simple) products. Since data is hardly available for domestic transactions, we generate predictions about the...

We analyze productivity enhancing public expenditure in a spatial economic model with labor mobility, firm-specific increasing returns to scale, and transport costs. Building on Krugman (1991), Fujita, Krugman and Venables (1999) and Redding (2016), we compare optimal investment and tax policies...

How does the quality of national institutions that enforce the rule of law influence international trade? Anderson and Marcouiller (2001) argue that bad institutions located in the importer's country deter international trade because they enable economic predators to steal and extort rents at...

In previous work (Berkowitz, Moenius and Pistor 2006), we have shown that countries with high quality legal institutions specialize in exporting complex products whose characteristics are difficult to fully specify in contracts. The miracle growth in the Asian Nine (China, Hong Kong, Indonesia,...