This paper assesses the impact thus far that the termination of trade restrictions under the Multi Fibre Arrangement (MFA) which up to the end of 2004 applied to exports of clothing and textiles in key OECD markets has had on Asian suppliers. The speculation prior to MFA termination had been...

How will worldwide changes in population affect pressures for international migration in the future? We contrast the past three decades, during which population pressures contributed to substantial labor flows from neighboring countries into the United States and Europe, with the coming three...

We examine "agglomeration shadows" that emerge around large cities, which discourage some economic activities in nearby areas. Identifying agglomeration shadows is complicated, however, by endogenous city formation and "wave interference" that we show in simulations. We use the locations of...

India was a major player in the world export market for textiles in the early 18th century, but by the middle of the 19th century it had lost all of its export market and much of its domestic market. Other local industries also suffered some decline, and India underwent secular...

We conduct a randomized experiment that generates exogenous variation in the access to foreign markets for rug producers in Egypt. Combined with detailed survey data, we causally identify the impact of exporting on firm performance. Treatment firms report 16-26 percent higher profits and exhibit...

In this article we introduce an empirical framework to analyze how firm performance is affected by increased globalization. Using this framework we discuss recent work on measuring the impact of various shocks firms face in the global marketplace, such as reductions in trade costs (through...

If trade barriers are managed by inefficient institutions, trade liberalization can lead to greater-than-expected gains. We examine Chinese textile and clothing exports before and after the elimination of externally imposed export quotas. We find that the surge in export value and decline in...

But the disappointments can also be attributed to the preferences because they discouraged additional value-addition in assembly and stimulated the use of expensive fabrics that were unlikely to be produced locally. When the MFA was removed, constrained countries such as China moved strongly...

For two decades, the consensus explanation of the British Industrial Revolution has placed technological change and the supply side at center stage, affording little or no role for demand or overseas trade. Recently, alternative explanations have placed an emphasis on the importance of trade...

This paper investigates the impact of ¡§learning-by-producing¡¨ on inventive activity and shows that, in both emerging (electrical equipment and supplies) and maturing (shoes and textiles) industries, the geographic association between invention and production was rather weak during the...