Our paper investigates whether the valuation effect caused by a large risk premium and a low risk-free rate can help to explain the enormous US current account and trade deficit observed in the past decade. To answer this question, we set up an endowment growth model in which investors are...

The literature on optimum currency areas argues that in the presence of countryspecific real shocks, the cost of fixing exchange rates is decreasing in the degree of trade openness. This study uses a stochastic dynamic general equilibrium model of endogenous specialization to assess the benefit...

This study quantifies dynamic learning effects behind the tariff wall in the American pig iron industry in 1870-1940. First, we present new datasets to argue that imported and domestic pig iron were close substitutes. Next, we provide evidence for dynamic learning effects. Finally, we use the...

The neoclassical theory of economic growth suggests that capital inflows raise the speed of convergence because foreign financial capital is transformed into physical capital. We propose a new methodology to quantify the size of capital inflows which are transformed into physical capital. We use...

This study proposes a new measure of tradability and examines its relationship with volatility of the sector-specic real exchange rate (RER). We derive degree of tradability from a model in which nal goods are produced from labor, capital and intermediate inputs. With free capital mobility, the...