This paper studies the effect of transport infrastructure on the real exchange rate (RER) and reaches two relatively strong conclusions. First, while the list of robust determinants of the RER is not long, transport infrastructure belongs to that list. Many other potential determinants proposed...

Motivated by recent empirical work, this paper formalizes a theory of competitive savings - an arms race in household savings for mating competition that is made more fierce by an increase in the male-to-female ratio in the pre-marital cohort. Relative to the empirical work, the theory can...

While a reduction in import barriers in a partial equilibrium may be thought to lead to an increase in imports and a reduction in trade surplus, the general equilibrium effect can go in the opposite direction. We study how trade reforms affect current accounts by embedding a modified...

When a sovereign faces the risk of debt default, it may be tempted to expropriate the private sector. This may be one reason for why international investment in private companies has to take into account the sovereign risk. But the likelihood of a transfer from the sovereign risk to corporate...

This paper proposes a framework for gross exports accounting that breaks up a country's gross exports into various value-added components by source and additional double counted terms. By identifying which parts of the official trade data are double counted and the sources of the double...

While in standard housing economics housing is regarded as an asset and a consumption good, we study in this paper the consequences for housing prices if housing is also a status good. More concretely, if a family's housing wealth relative to others is an important marker for relative status in...

How does increasing globalization affect corporate transparency? Freer trade represents different facets and in theory has ambiguous effects on corporate transparency. On the one hand, by exposing firms to more product market competition, it could discourage discretionary disclosure. On the...

This paper develops a new theory of international economics by introducing Heckscher-Ohlin features of intra-temporal trade into an intertemporal trade approach of current account. To do so, we consider a dynamic general equilibrium model with tradable sectors of different factor intensities,...

If trade barriers are managed by inefficient institutions, trade liberalization can lead to greater-than-expected gains. We examine Chinese textile and clothing exports before and after the elimination of externally imposed export quotas. We find that the surge in export value and decline in...

Using accounting data for 7722 non-financial firms in 42 countries, we examine how the 2007-2009 crisis affected firm performance and how various linkages propagated shocks across borders. We isolate and compare effects from changes in external financing conditions, domestic demand, and...