We present a dynamic comparative advantage model in which moderate reductions in trade costs can generate sizable increases in trade volumes over time. A fall in trade costs has two effects on the volume of trade. First, for given factor endowments, it raises the degree of specialization of...

The extremely large disparities in employment rates across Italian regions, and the bad performance of the Italian economy in terms of job creation in the 80´s and early 90´s make job creation a top-priority in the economic policy agenda. This paper uses data on employment from 784 Local Labor...

We evaluate manufacturing firms' responses to changes in the real exchange rate (RER) using detailed firm-level data for a large set of countries for the period 2001-2010. We uncover the following stylized facts: In emerging Asia, real depreciations are associated with faster growth of...