This paper analyzes the determinants of the intra-firm vs arms’length sourcing mode of imported inputs. We build a unique French dataset of 1,141,393 import transactions at the firm, country and product levels in the year 1999 that allow us to distinguish the different sourcing modes. We study...

A short review of the theoretical and empirical evidence indicates that Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) has the potential to increase the intensity of competition as well as to act as a channel for technology transfers. One would expect, all else equal, an increase in average productivity...

A growth-decomposition (scale, technique and composition effect) covering 62 countries and 7 manufacturing sectors over the 1990-2000 period shows that trade, through reallocations of activities across countries, has contributed to a 2-3 percent decrease in world SO2 emissions. However, when...

One of the best established empirical results in international economics is that bilateral trade decreases with distance. Although well-known, these results have not been systematically analyzed before. We examine 1052 distance effects estimated in 78 papers. Information collected on each...

We survey and assess the literature on the positive and negative effects of ethnic diversity on economic policies and outcomes. Our focus is on communities of different size and organizational structure, such as countries, cities in developed countries, villages and groups in developing...

We examine both grants and net loans made to low income countries during the last two decades to understand the main reasons that motivated the behaviour of both donors and creditors. We find that the total amount of net transfers to HIPCs, as compared to non-HIPCs, have been increasing with...

This paper derives the optimal composition of the Brazilian public debt by looking at the relative impact of the risk and cost of alternative debt instruments on the probability of missing the stabilization target. This allows to price risk against the expected cost of debt service and thus to...

In a world where poor countries provide weak protection for intellectual property rights, market integration will systematically shift technical change in favor of rich nations. For this reason, free trade can increase international income differences. At the same time, integration with...

In this paper we use individual micro data on workers combined with industry and regional data to study the dynamics of the wage differentials between skilled and unskilled workers in Italy in the period 1991-1996. Being different to previous empirical studies, our data allow us to explore in a...