Previous studies of trade and the environment overwhelmingly focus on how trade affects where goods are produced. However, trade also affects where goods are consumed. In this paper we describe a model of trade with durable goods and non-homothetic preferences. In autarky, low-quality (used)...

This paper examines the construction equipment resale market to assess whether equipment produced by the world's largest manufacturer of construction machinery, Caterpillar, experienced lower product quality in facilities that underwent contract disputes during the 1990's. Analysis of auction...

The consumption value of a durable good diminishes as it ages due to physical deterioration and consumers' preference for the new. We develop a model of consumer specialization and trade in the market for used durables based on imperfect substitutability. Imperfect substitutability across...

James Michael Curley, a four-time mayor of Boston, used wasteful redistribution to his poor Irish constituents and incendiary rhetoric to encourage richer citizens to emigrate from Boston, thereby shaping the electorate in his favor. Boston as a consequence stagnated, but Curley kept winning...

We study the effects of explosive growth in the Bangladeshi ready-made garments industry on the lives on Bangladeshi women. We compare the marriage, childbearing, school enrollment and employment decisions of women who gain greater access to garment sector jobs to women living further away from...

This paper looks at the predictions of a standard heterogeneous firm model regarding the exports of firms across markets in response to a particular trade policy "experiment" and compares these predictions to the data. A unique feature of our data is that it has information on the exports of the...

While it is by now well known that the privatization of township- and village-run enterprises (TVREs) has been rapidly and widely taking place in China, it is much less known whether and to what extent privatization has improved resource allocation and productivity. As a first step toward the...

Are the U.S. textile and apparel industries examples of creative destruction or are they just plain destructing? We investigate this question using both aggregate industry-level data and plant-level data from the U.S. Census' LRD. We find that while the aggregate-level evidence is consistent...

Which managerial skills, traits, and practices matter most for productivity? How does the observability of these features affect how appropriately they are priced into wages? Combining two years of daily, line-level production data from a large Indian garment firm with rich survey data on line...