How do exporters expand their product scope and geographical presence? We argue that new exporters are uncertain about their profitability in different countries and products, but learn it as they start to export. As a consequence, exporters add products and countries sequentially, in an...

Few firms import, even when formal trade barriers are low and despite substantial potential gains. Likely reasons are uncertainty and informational frictions, creating scope for local peers to affect new importers. We explore this hypothesis using data on French imports by...

Few firms import, even when formal trade barriers are low and despite substantial potential gains. Likely reasons are uncertainty and informational frictions, creating scope for local peers to affect new importers. We explore this hypothesis using data on French imports by...

In this paper we study how international trade in goods and services interact at the firm level. Using a rich dataset on Belgian firms during the period 1995-2005, we show that: i) firms are much more likely to source services and goods inputs from the same origin country rather than from...

We provide an analysis of the 2008-2009 trade collapse using microdata from a small open economy, Belgium. First, we find that changes in firm-country-product exports and imports occurred mostly at the intensive margin: the number of firms, the average number of destination and origin markets...

We discuss how standard computable equilibrium models of trade policy can be enriched with selection effects without missing other important channels of adjustment. This is achieved by estimating and simulating a partial equilibrium model that accounts for a number of real world effects of trade...

Do individuals trust experts' advice? Does the sector represented by these experts matter for trust and compliance? Do individuals prefer the public or the private sector for large-scale responses to events such as the pandemic? We answer these questions by means of a large-scale survey on a...

We analyze the influence of IMF and World Bank programs on political regime transitions. We develop an extended version of Acemoglu and Robinson's [American Economic Review 91, 2001] model of political transitions to show how the anticipation of new loans from international financial...

In this paper we analyze the role of the IMF and the World Bank in triggering changes in the political regime, i.e., democracy and autocracy. We develop a theoretical model which predicts that anticipation of financial flows from international financial institutions may trigger political regime...

In this paper we analyze the role of the IMF and the World Bank in triggering changes in the political regime, i.e., democracy and autocracy. We develop a theoretical model which predicts that anticipation of financial flows from international financial institutions may trigger political regime...