Recent models of international trade show that trade costs are important determinants of exporting decisions and productivity dynamics. By assuming that these costs are exogenous and constant across firms, these theories do not take into account that experienced firms may have lower trading...

This paper examines the effect of changes in the real exchange rate on skill upgrading in the case of Chile. Using plant-level data from the manufacturing sector we find that a real depreciation increases the share of skilled workers in the total wage bill in exporters but not in non-exporters....

This paper examines the effect of real exchange rate volatility on the intensive margin and the extensive margin of exports. Using highly disaggregated U.S. import data by product and country of origin, and a methodology that takes into account the possible endogeneity of volatility to trade,...

Recent models of trade with firm heterogeneity predict that opening to trade reduces the number of firms, increases the average size of firms, and decreases firms’ markups. This paper uses a large dataset for 28 manufacturing industries and 46 countries to test these predictions. The...

The increasing importance of China in the world trade raises important questions on its impact on importing countries. This paper studies how import competition from China has affected wages in the Chilean Manufacturing Industry. Using plant-level data for the period 1996-2005, we find that...

We use detailed Chilean plant-level data from 1990 to 2000 to study the impact of Chinese import competition in manufacturing industries. We study whether China’s imports have been associated with a downsizing of manufacturing plants or whether firms have escaped Chinese competition through...

This paper addresses three main questions; how can a country specialized in primary goods become an exporter of manufacturing goods? How does factor abundance affect the possibilities of achieving comparative advantages in manufactures? Does the type of natural resource abundance make any...

This paper studies the relationship among exports, productivity and technological innovation for Chilean manufacturing plants. Firstly, we address the causality between exporting and plant productivity. Our results, consistently with most of the evidence for other economies, suggest that only...

This paper analyzes the relationship between probability of survival and plant size. Using information for the Chilean manufacturing industry over the period 1979-1999, we study empirically if small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) have reduced their probability of survival over time. Our...

This paper examines the link between multinational enterprises and employment growth at the plant-level. We investigate in detail the comparative response of multinationals and domestic firms to an economic crisis, using the empirical setting of a well defined case of economic slowdown in Chile...