This paper examines how international flows of technological knowledge affect economic performance across industries and firms in different countries. Motivated by the large share of the world's technology investments made by firms that are active across borders, we focus on international trade...

We conduct a randomized control trial that generates exogenous variation in the access to foreign markets for rug producers in Egypt. Combined with detailed survey data, we causally identify the impact of exporting on firm performance. Treatment firms report 15-25 percent higher profits and...

Why do low-skilled workers choose to work in a foreign economy and what determines their wages? The Paper empirically implements the Roy self-selection model to study this question. It does so using a unique dataset on Palestinian workers working locally and in the Israeli economy. The data...

Bailing out banks requires overcoming debt overhang as well as dealing with adverse selection with respect to the quality of banks' balance sheets, in terms of heterogeneity in both the likelihood and extent of their potential shortfalls, of future asset values vis-à-vis contractual debt...

Productivity is high in cities partly because the urban environment acts as a self-selection mechanism. If workers have imperfect information about the quality of workers with whom they match and matches take place within cities, then high-ability workers will choose to live and work in...

In this paper we investigate how heterogeneous agents choose among tournaments with different prizes. We show that if the number of agents is sufficiently small, multiple equilibria can arise. Depending on how the prize money is split over the tournaments, these may include, for example, a...

The dynamics of self-confidence are modelled in an environment where rational individuals optimally choose education and occupations with the aim to acquire productive skills while learning about ability. It is shown how the presence of uninformative options can trap individuals below their...

Destination countries have been resorting to selective immigration policies to improve migrants' quality. We propose a model that analyzes the effects of selective immigration policies on migrants' quality, measured by their wages at destination. Screening potential migrants on the basis of...