We provide an analysis of the 2008-2009 trade collapse using microdata from a small open economy, Belgium. First, we find that changes in firm-country-product exports and imports occurred mostly at the intensive margin: the number of firms, the average number of destination and origin markets...

Protection unconstrained by rules often varies substantially over time. Rules-based disciplines, such as WTO tariff bindings and bindings on market access in services, constrain this variability. We examine the theoretical effects of such constraints on the expected cost of protection and offer...

This paper develops a structural empirical general equilibrium model of aggregate bilateral trade with path dependence of country-pair level exporter status. Such path dependence is motivated through informational costs about serving a foreign market for first-time entry of (firms in) an export...

Internationally active firms rely intensively on trade credits even though they are considered particularly expensive. This phenomenon has been little explored so far. Our theoretical analysis shows that trade credits can alleviate financial constraints arising from asymmetric information...

We examine the role of non-economic partnerships in promoting international economic exchange. Since far-sighted countries are more willing to join costly international partnerships such as environmental treaties, environmental engagement tends to encourage international lending. Countries with...

This paper takes a modest step towards formalizing the theoretical interconnections among four post-Industrial-Revolution phenomena – the industrialization and growth take-off of rich ‘northern’ nations, massive global income divergence, and rapid trade expansion. Specifically, we present...

This paper examines how prices, markups and marginal costs respond to trade liberalization. We develop a framework to estimate markups from production data with multi-product firms. This approach does not require assumptions on the market structure or demand curves faced by firms, nor...

This paper analyzes the consequences of the internationalization of the Chinese renminbi for the global monetary system and its possible ascension to reserve currency status. In an unstable and financially integrated world, governments’ precautionary demand for reserve assets is likely to...

This Paper examines the impact on TFP of North-South and South-South trade-related R&D spillovers. It is the first, as far as we know, to do so at the industry level for developing countries. North-South and South-South R&D flows are constructed based on industry-specific R&D in the North,...