We present a novel argument demonstrating that when trade is characterized by uncertainty the comparative advantages doctrine is misleading and a positive level of diversification is growth enhancing. Applying a result developed in the mathematical biological literature, we show that, in...

This paper analyzes how increasing trade integration affects individual utility when the international specialization pattern is stochastic, i.e. when the number of varieties each country produces depends on the realization of a random variable. I employ a Ricardian continuum of goods model to...

We study the effect of conflict on firms’ economic performance and explore the underlying mechanisms. Combining an original panel dataset of Libyan firms with geolocalized data on conflict events, we build a firm-specific measure of conflict exposure and use its within-firm variation to show...

We study the effect of conflict on firms’ economic performance and explore the underlying mechanisms. Combining an original retrospective panel dataset of Libyan firms with geolocalized data on conflict events, we build a firm-specific measure of conflict exposure and use its within-firm...

We present a novel argument demonstrating that when trade is characterized by uncertainty the comparative advantages doctrine is misleading and a positive level of diversification is growth enhancing. Applying a result developed in the mathematical biological literature, we show that, in...

This paper addresses the role of mobility costs in shaping the effects of trade integration on wage inequality and welfare. We present a three-factor, two-sector model in which the production technology exhibits capital-skill complementarity and the cost of moving across sectors differs between...