This paper analyzes the manufacturing sector of Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic between 1993 and 2001 and provides a set of stylized facts concerning the changes occurred in the skill composition of the workforce and in the earning structure by skills on one hand, and in trade flows and...

Using comparable industry-level data for nine Western European countries, this paper finds that the international relocation of service activities (service offshoring) exerts positive and economically large effects on domestic productivity. A one percentage point increase in the proxy for...

This paper studies the effects of foreign participation on economic performance in Lombardy, a Northern Italian region accounting for more than 40% of Foreign Direct Investment inflows in Italy. We employ a large database consisting of balance sheet and foreign ownership information for more...

This paper studies the e¤ects of service offshoring on the skill composition of labor demand in Western Europe, using comparable data for nine economies during the 1990s. A short-run translog cost function allows derivation of demand elasticities for three labor inputs. Potential endogeneity...

During the 1990s Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic have experienced rapid in-creases in wage inequality between skilled and unskilled workers and received the largest FDI inflow in Central and Eastern Europe. Using non-parametric and parametric approaches, this paper analyzes whether FDI...

An influential literature has documented large differences across countries and industries in terms of product quality. It is important to understand the determinants of these differences, because the production of high-quality goods influences key aspects of economic performance. In this paper,...

We propose a theoretical foundation for a link between North-South trade imbalances and skill upgrading. We provide robust support for our theory using a panel of US manufacturing industries observed between 1977 and 2005. Our results suggest that the impact of the US trade deficit on the...

We study, both theoretically and empirically, how trade imbalances affect the structure of countries' exports and wage inequality. We show that, in a Heckscher-Ohlin model with a continuum of goods, a Southern (Northern) trade surplus leads to an increase (reduction) in the average skill...

Product quality plays a key role in economics, but differs markedly across countries and industries. What are the determinants and implications of this pattern? In this paper, we test an explanation for the large heterogeneity in product quality that rests on the interplay between cross-country...