Why do we observe some LDCs objecting the prospect of a Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI), although they have been keen to liberalize investment in preferential agreements in recent years? In this paper, we analyse the issue of MAI implementation and assess the welfare consequences of...

We study the effect “globalization” on wage inequality. Our “global” economy resembles Rosen (1981) “Superstars” economy, where a) innovations in production and communication technologies enable suppliers to reach a larger mass of consumers and to improve the (perceived) quality of...

We introduce incomplete outsourcing contracts in an otherwise standard model of MNEs based on the trade-off between proximity and concentration. This has both positive and normative implications. As to the former, incomplete outsourcing contracts can account for the observed emergence of FDIs in...

Recent evidence shows that the “home bias puzzle” in international trade may be associated with the mere presence of national borders (McCallum (1996)). In this paper we provide a theoretical framework to explain why borders may matter so much for trade. Our argument is that even between...

This paper presents firm level evidence on the dynamics of nonmanual wage premia and employment shares in Italian manufacturing during the nineties. We find that the relative stability of aggregate wage premia and employment shares hides o¤setting disaggregate forces. First, while technical...

This paper provides a cross-country perspective to the firm-level analysis of the relation between foreign ownership and labour demand. We estimate labour demand equations in eleven European countries using dynamic panel data techniques on samples that permit to distinguish the ownership status...

Especially in developing countries credit constraints are often perceived as one of the most important market frictions constraining firm innovation and growth. Huge amounts of public money are being devoted to the removal of such constraints but their effectiveness is still subject to an...

There exists a growing body of literature which looks at export decisions made by firms. Most studies focus on developed countries and do not explore whether different behavioral patterns prevail over the firm size distribution. This paper aims at filling this gap in the literature by analyzing...

We develop an endogenous growth model with R&D spillovers to study the long run consequences of offshoring with firm heterogeneity and incomplete contracts. In so doing, we model offshoring as the geographical fragmentation of a firm’s production chain between a home upstream division and a...