This paper is concerned with the nature of economic growth in 19 manufacturing industries between 1970-92. There is substantial heterogeneity (both across sectors and time) in rates of growth of value-added, hours worked, labour productivity and Total Factor Productivity during the sample...

Theoretical models of growth and trade suggest that patterns of international specialisation are inherently dynamic and evolve endogenously over time. Initial comparative advantaged are either reinforced or gradually unwound with the passage of time. This paper puts forward an empirical...

This paper argues that developing economies may face a trade-off between specializaing according to existing comparative advantage (in low-technology goods), and entering sectors in which they currently lack a comparative advantage, but may acquire such an advantage in the future as a result of...

This paper is concerned with the validity of historical claims that there may be a "penelty" of being a pionee. The analysis applies Aghion and Howitt's (1994) distinction between fundamental end secondary knowledge to investigate the existence of a "penalty" of being pioneer with general...

This paper develops a quantitative model of internal city structure that features agglomeration and dispersion forces and an arbitrary number of heterogeneous city blocks. The model remains tractable and amenable to empirical analysis because of stochastic shocks to commuting decisions, which...

We show that endogenous firm selection provides a new welfare margin for heterogeneous firm models of trade (relative to homogeneous firm models). Under some parameter restrictions, the trade elasticity is constant and is a sufficient statistic for welfare, along with the domestic trade share....

We develop a quantitative spatial model that incorporates a rich geography of trade and imperfect labor mobility between locations. We provide general results for the existence, uniqueness and comparative statics of the equilibrium. We show how the model can be used to undertake counterfactuals...

This paper surveys the theoretical and empirical literature on the relationship between the spatial distribution of economic activity and transportation costs. We develop a multi-region model of economic geography that we use to understand the general equilibrium implications of transportation...

The theoretical result that there are welfare gains from trade is a central tenet of international economics. In a class of trade models that satisfy a "gravity equation," the welfare gains from trade can be computed using only the open economy domestic trade share and the elasticity of trade...

This paper reviews the new approach to international trade based on firm heterogeneity in differentiated product markets. This approach explains a variety of features exhibited in disaggregated trade data, including the higher productivity of exporters relative to non-exporters, within-industry...