Helpman, Melitz, and Rubinstein (2008)HMRpresent a rich theoretical model to study the determinants of bilateral trade flows across countries. The model is then empirically implemented through a two-stage estimation procedure. This note seeks to clarify some econometric aspects of the estimation...

In many economic applications, the variate of interest is non-negative and its distribution is characterized by a mass-point at zero and a long right-tail. Many regression strategies have been proposed to deal with data of this type. Although there has been a long debate in the literature on the...

Systematic differences in the timing of wage setting decisions among industrialized countries provide an ideal framework to study the importance of wage rigidity in the transmission of monetary policy. The Japanese Shunto presents the best-known case of bunching in wage setting decisions: From...