Price stickiness—the tendency of prices to remain constant despite changes in supply and demand—has been linked to firms’ unwillingness to pay the costs entailed in setting, implementing, and advertising new prices. However, there is little consensus on the size and importance of these...

How rigid are producer prices? Conventional wisdom is that producer prices are more rigid than and so play less of an allocative role than do consumer prices. In the 1987-2008 micro data collected by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics for the PPI, we find that producer prices for finished goods...

How rigid are producer prices? Conventional wisdom is that producer prices are more rigid than and so play less of an allocative role than do consumer prices. In the 1987-2008 micro data collected by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics for the PPI, we find that producer prices for finished goods...

This paper examines how prices, markups and marginal costs respond to trade liberalization. We develop a framework to estimate markups from production data with multi-product firms. This approach does not require assumptions on the market structure or demand curves faced by firms, nor...

In this article we introduce an empirical framework to analyze how firm performance is affected by increased globalization. Using this framework we discuss recent work on measuring the impact of various shocks firms face in the global marketplace, such as reductions in trade costs (through...

We examine whether the Colombian trade reform can explain any of Colombia's decline in urban poverty between 1984 and 1995. Our approach focuses on short- and medium- run channels through which trade reform could affect poverty. Despite the chronological coincidence of the poverty reduction with...

We discuss recent empirical research on how globalization has affected income inequality in developing countries. We begin with a discussion of conceptual issues regarding the measurement of globalization and inequality. Next, we present empirical evidence on the evolution of globalization and...

We investigate the empirical significance of borrowing constraints in the market for consumer loans. We set up a theoretical model of consumer loan demand, which in the presence of credit rationing implies restrictions on the elasticities of loan demand with respect to the interest rate and the...

Under the TRIPS agreement, WTO members are required to enforce product patents for pharmaceuticals. The debate about the merits of this requirement has been extremely contentious. Many low income economies claim that patent protection for pharmaceuticals will result in substantially higher...

Import prices typically change by a smaller proportion than the exchange rate between the exporting and importing country. Recent research indicates that common-currency relative prices for similar goods exported to different markets are highly correlated with exchange rates between those...