We propose a simple model of trade outside the law preyed on by robbers and possiblyprotected by private cops. We establish the conditions for trade collapse, secure trade andinsecure trade. Endogenous predation and enforcement can explain both puzzling failures ofcommonly observed state...

The high trade costs inferred from gravity are rarely used in thewide class of trade models. Two related problems explain this omis-sion of a key explanatory variable. First, national seller and buyer re-sponses to trade costs depend on their incidence rather than on the fullcost. Second, the...

The fact that raising taxes can increase taxed labor supply through income effects is frequently used to justify greater public good provision than indicated by traditional, compensated analyses. We develop a model including multiple public goods and taxes and derive consistent measures of the...

The recent public economics literature involves an apparent consensus that income effects reduce the costs of raising revenues and hence increase the desirable level of public good provision. Higher taxes can indeed reduce the demand for leisure - and hence increase the supply of taxed labor -...

A structural gravity model is used to estimate barriers to services trade across many sectors, countries, and time. Since the disaggregated output data needed to infer border barriers flexibly are often missing for services, this paper derives a novel methodology for projecting output data. The...