We present a novel two-stage gravity specification with period-varying bilateral trade cost terms. We test our specification to confirm the benchmark result on declining international distance elasticities over time, using two new data sets. Analyzing period-varying bilateral trade cost derived...

Research for evidence on offshoring activities and its driving forces has been done by analyzing gross trade flows related to offshoring using gravity equations augmented by ad hoc measures of supply-side country differences. We develop a specification grounded in incomplete specialization that...

We suggest that bilateral gravity equations augmented by ad hoc measures of absolute supply-side country differences are misspecified. Building on Haveman and Hummels (2004), we develop and test an alternative specification rooted in incomplete specialization that views bilateral gravity...

Recent panel studies have found relatively high estimates for the elasticity of real exchange rates with respect to productivity measures in transition economies within Balassa- Samuelson frameworks. This contrasts with other findings reporting cross-section price-income elasticity estimates to...

Within a standard gravity framework I explore the impact of country size and trade liberalisation on extensive and intensive margins of imports across broad categories of goods. This allows testing hypotheses from two distinct strands of the trade literature, i.e., vertical integration versus...

Several trade-based measures of product variety have recently been used implicitly to represent states of technology, promoting long-run growth. In this paper, we define the state of technology as the range of specialised production processes and propose the variety of capital goods available...

Trade policy has well documented effects on trade volumes. Reaching beyond volumes, I explore the impact of European emerging economies' recent institutional trade liberalisation on extensive (i.e., the set of imported goods) versus intensive import margins (volumes per imported good) with...

Recent empirical studies have been searching for evidence on and driving forces for offshoring. Frequently, this has been done by analyzing gross trade flows related to offshore activities using gravity equations augmented by ad hoc measures of supply-side country differences. This paper...

The paper extends the literature on the political economy of labour market institutions by developing a framework in which owners of capital can benefit from both greater labour market flexibility and better rule of law. Their choice of location of manufacturing centres can, therefore, by...

The paper extends the literature on the political economy of labour market institutions by developing a framework in which owners of capital can benefit from both greater labour market flexibility and better rule of law. Their choice of location of manufacturing centres can, therefore, by...