This paper models government procurements as a contest among domestic firms, and - in case of liberalization - domestic and foreign firms. Liberalizing procurements reduces wasteful domestic lobbying but also increases the likelihood that a foreign firm will capture the rent. We show that the...

This paper discusses the influence of public ownership on trade policy instruments. We demonstrate three important invariance results. First, the degree of public ownership affects neither the level of socially optimal activities nor welfare if the government chooses optimal trade policy...

This paper develops an oligopolistic model of international trade with heterogeneous firms and endogenous R&D to examine how trade liberalization affects firm and industry productivity, as well as social welfare. We identify four effects of trade liberalization on productivity: (i) a direct...