Motivated by growth models based on the variety of capital goods, recent empirical studies have established links between productivity and several trade-based measures of product variety, carrying the implication that these measures may represent technology. We study this implication by...

The Balassa-Samuelson hypothesis - i.e. that real exchange rates between each pair of countries increase with the tradables sector productivities ratio between these countries, and decrease with their non-tradables sector productivities ratio - has been one of the most prominent frameworks in...

This special issue includes eight papers on a range of topics related to the study of the variety and quality of trade in development and transition based on micro and disaggregated macro data. The authors discuss country and country-group specific trade patterns on firm and/or product level,...

In spite of an hitherto unprecedented record of external liberalization in Central European economies contributions of exports to real growth have recently been rather unspectacular, especially when compared to the experience of OECD countries lacking a comparable degree of external...

We aim to put comparative price developments of transition economies in an international perspective. We argue that estimating simple price-productivity relationships without the inclusion of other explanatory factors connected to reform effort might severely bias estimates for CEEC and CIS...