This paper investigates the impacts of cotton marketing reforms on farm productivity, a key element for poverty alleviation, in rural Zambia. The reforms comprised the elimination of the Zambian cotton marketing board that was in place since 1977. Following liberalization, the sector adopted an...

This paper explores the links between exports, export destinations, and skill utilization. We identify two mechanisms behind these links: differences across destinations in quality valuation and in exporting required services, activities that are intensive in skilled labor. Depending on the...

In this paper, we estimate mark-ups with plant level production data for Argentina from a structural model of cost-minimizing producers, as proposed by De Loecker and Warzynski (2012). We explore systematic differences across industries and plants. Our main findings are that mark-ups are higher...

When export opportunities arise, the gains from trade can only be materialized if the economy adjusts. In order to expand and meet new markets, firms must hire new workers and tune their capital stock by investing in product lines, machines and equipment. If this process is costly and imperfect,...

In 2003, after claims of dumping, the United States imposed heavy tariffs on Vietnamese catfish, which led to a collapse of imports. We use panel data to explore household responses in the catfish-producing Mekong delta between 2002 and 2004 and find that income growth was significantly slower...

This paper explores the role of export costs in the process of poverty reduction in rural Africa. We claim that the marketing costs that emerge when the commercialization of export crops requires intermediaries can lead to lower participation into export cropping and, thus, to higher poverty. We...

A large literature studies the effects of trade policy changes on developing-country exports on household incomes, and recent contributions have increasingly addressed the effects of administered protection, such as anti-dumping duties. In 2003 the United States imposed anti-dumping tariffs on...

This paper investigates the dynamic impacts of cotton marketing reforms on farm output in rural Zambia. Following liberalization and the elimination of the Zambian cotton marketing board, the sector developed an outgrower scheme whereby cotton firms provided credit, access to inputs and output...