This paper provides evidence on the long-term impact of market potential on economic development. It derives from the New Economic Geography literature a structural estimation where the level of factors' income of a country is related to its export capacity, labelled Market Access (MA) by...

This paper develops a method of assessment of market access difficulties with an application to manufactured trade patterns between developing and developed countries. The method also offers a renewal of the assessment of the impact of regional trading arrangements. We use a micro-founded...

Investigations of the effect of quality differences on heterogeneous performance in exporting have been limited by lack of direct measures of quality. We examine exports of French wine, matching the exporting firms to producer ratings from two wine guides. We show that high quality producers...

This paper analyzes the reaction of exporters to exchange rate changes. We present a model where, in the presence of distribution costs in the export market, high and low productivity firms react differently to a depreciation. Whereas high productivity firms optimally raise their markup rather...

Free trade in audio-visual services has faced opposition on the grounds that foreign media undermine domestic culture, and ultimately, global diversity. Using a long panel of French birth registries, we assess the media-culture link using name frequencies as a measure of tastes. Controlling for...

We analyze the interaction of economic and political determinants of free trade agreements (FTA). In addition to standard trade gains, FTAs can promote peaceful relations by offering a political forum and by increasing the opportunity cost of conflicts that disrupt trade. If policy makers...

We build a theoretical model of multi-product firms that highlights how market size and ge- ography (the market sizes of and bilateral economic distances to trading partners) affect both a firm's exported product range and its exported product mix across market destinations (the dis- tribution...

This paper develops a theoretical model of location choice under imperfect competition to formalize the notion that firms prefer to locate “where the markets are.” The profitability of a location depends on a term that weights demand in all locations by accessibility. Using a sample of...

In addition to standard trade gains, regional trade agreements (RTAs) can promote peaceful relations by increasing the opportunity cost of conflicts. Country pairs with large trade gains from RTAs and a high probability of conflict should be more likely to sign an RTA. Using data from 1950 to...

L'ouverture de l'économie française et, plus généralement, son insertion dans le mouvement généralement qualifié de mondialisation sont des préoccupations constantes de l'opinion et ceci a déjà trouvé un écho dans plusieurs numéros consacrés à la question par Économie et...