What has driven trade booms and trade busts in the past and present? We derive a micro-founded measure of trade frictions from leading trade theories and use it to gauge the importance of bilateral trade costs in determining international trade flows. We construct a new balanced sample of...

This paper derives a micro-founded gravity equation in general equilibrium based on a translog demand system that allows for endogenous markups and substitution patterns across goods. In contrast to standard CES-based gravity equations, trade is more sensitive to trade costs if the exporting...

This paper derives a micro-founded gravity equation based on a translog demand system that allows for flexible substitution patterns across goods. In contrast to the standard CES-based gravity equation, translog gravity generates an endogenous trade cost elasticity. Trade is more sensitive to...

This paper presents two wage series for unskilled English women workers from 1260 to 1850, the first based on daily wages and the second on the remuneration per day implied in annual service contracts. These two series are compared and the series for women’s daily wages is also compared with...

We investigate whether and how the type of unemployment benefit institution affects productivity. We designed a field experiment to compare workers' productivity under a welfare system, where the unemployed receive an unconditional monetary transfer, with their productivity under a workfare...

We examine why heterogenous communities may fail to provide public goods. Current work characterizes sanctioning free-riders as an under-supplied public good. We argue that often free-riders can be punished by the coordinated action of a group. This punishment can be profitable, and need not be...

This paper provides a survey of the implications of post-war European economic integration for trade and income. A particular focus is the impact on the United Kingdom. The literature clearly points to large effects of the EU on trade but is more ambivalent about EFT A. Conventional econometric...

There are at least two distinct (but related) concepts of ‘secular stagnation’. One concerns a possible long-run term trend growth failure and the other a permanent liquidity trap. In the context of poor productivity performance, both are legitimate fears for European economies although...

We measure the consequences of asymmetric information and imperfect competition in the Italian lending market. We show that banks’ optimal price response to an increase in adverse selection varies with competition. Exploiting matched data on loans and defaults, we estimate models of demand for...

How do individual preferences over welfare spending respond to economic hard times? In this paper we reconcile two prominent, opposing expectations : that recessions lead to a `hunkering down' such that individuals become less favorable to taxation and expenditure; and that downturns, being...