Industrialization drives the sustained growth in jobs and productivity that marks the developmental take-off of most developed economies. Yet, academics and policy makers have questioned the role of manufacturing in development for late industrializers, especially in view of rapid advancements...

This paper characterizes the firm size distribution by exploiting establishment-level censuses covering both formal and informal firms in Sub-Saharan Africa. The paper finds a "missing middle" in the employment-based size distribution of firms in four Sub-Saharan African countries. This "missing...

Several studies highlight that exporters in developing countries face substantial trade costs. To reduce these costs, a few developed countries mainly Canada, the EU, Japan and the USA granted preferential market access to these exporters. We assess whether these preferential accesses have...

Using a highly disaggregated firm-product-destination level data from Denmark, we document salient features of Danish international production in the recent decade. These include systematic variation in export participation of firms across industries, positive correlation between the scope...

Studies examining the effect of regional trade agreements (RTAs) on trade find rather heterogeneous effects depending on the terms of the agreements, sectors and products covered, and the characteristics of the countries involved. The standard approach to estimating RTA effects does not...

This paper assesses patterns and drivers of current trade restructuring and its welfare implications. The main trade restructuring drivers include lower cost advanced technologies, rising offshore labor costs, and recent shocks like COVID-19, trade disputes, and geopolitical tensions. Data on...