This Paper shows that international trade affects the demand for skill through an export-based channel. Our working hypothesis is that the very act of exporting requires an effort of skill upgrading, in particular among occupations related to marketing and development. Using firm level data, we...

This Paper shows how to calibrate a two-sector general equilibrium model of production using a small number of parameter assumptions and readily available data. The framework is then used to analyse the costs of labour market dualism. The Paper quantifies the effects of rural-urban wage...

This Paper documents that the rise of (Western) Europe between 1500 and 1850 is largely accounted for by the growth of European nations with access to the Atlantic, and especially by those nations that engaged in colonialism and long distance oceanic trade. Moreover, Atlantic ports grew much...

An important element of the cost of distance is time taken in delivering final and intermediate goods. We argue that time costs are qualitatively different from direct monetary costs such as freight charges. The difference arises because of uncertainty. Unsynchronized deliveries can disrupt...

This paper addresses the final steps to global free trade – what they might look like, what sort of political economy forces might drive them, and what the WTO might do to guide them. Two facts form the point of departure: 1) Regionalism is here to stay; world trade is regulated by a motley...

Because of concern that OECD tariff reductions will translate into worsening export performance for the least developed countries, trade preferences have proven a stumbling block to developing country support for multilateral liberalization. We examine the actual scope for preference erosion,...

This Paper examines the economic effects of the opening of the former Soviet Union. The analysis carried out in the Paper is two-fold. First we simulate the impact of the eastern enlargement of the EU and, second, we analyse how deeper integration between the EU and Russia contributes to this....

Information is costly to acquire in trade and financial markets, especially across international borders. Sellers and buyers rely on information and experiences of other firms, including from business partners located in other countries. This Paper identifies three channels through which...

This Paper studies the size and number of industrial clusters that will arise in a multi-country world in which, because of increasing returns to scale, one sector has a propensity to cluster. It compares the equilibrium with the world welfare maximum, showing that the equilibrium will generally...

This paper investigates how the measures of genetic distance between populations, which have been used in anthropology and historical linguistics, can be used in economics. What does the correlation between genetic distance and economic variables mean? Using the measure of genetic distance, a...