The unprecedented drop in international trade during the last quarter of 2008 and the first quarter of 2009 has mostly been analysed at the macroeconomic or sectoral level. However, heterogeneous exporters in terms of productivity, size or external finance dependence should be hit differently by...

Competitiveness has come to the forefront of the policy debate within the European Union, focusing on price competitiveness and intra-EU imbalances. But how to measure properly competitiveness, beyond price or cost competitiveness, remains an open methodological issue; and what is the resilience...

This paper analyzes how firms adjust to differences in market size and demand uncertainty by changing the frequency and size of their export shipments. In our inventory model, transportation costs and optimal shipment frequency are determined on the basis of demand as well as inventory and per...

We estimate the elasticity of extra-EU French firm-level exports with respect to applied tariffs, a variable trade cost. We propose a methodology controlling for unobserved firm characteristics driving selection in exports market and for the usual resistance terms. Results confirm a significant...

This paper explores the economic impacts of preferential trade agreements, conditional on their level of ambition. We cluster 278 agreements, encompassing 910 provisions over 18 policy areas and estimate the trade elasticity for the different clusters. We then use these elasticities in a series...