The Cold War was the defining episode of geopolitical fragmentation in the twentieth century. Trade between East and West across the Iron Curtain (a symbolical and physical barrier dividing Europe into two distinct areas) was restricted, but the severity of these restrictions varied over time....

We analyze a repeated game in which countries are polluting as well as investing in technologies. While folk theorems point out that the first best can be sustained as a subgame-perfect equilibrium when the players are sufficiently patient, we derive the second best equilibrium when they are...

The US decision not to ratify the Kyoto Protocol and the recent outcomes of the Bonn and Marrakech Conferences of the Parties drastically reduces the effectiveness of the Kyoto Protocol in controlling GHG emissions. The reason is not only the reduced emission abatement in the US, but also the...

Theoretical analysis and empirical evidence show that leadership behavior in climate policy through increased abatement efforts or international transfers cannot be expected to be very successful. In this paper we instead show that pioneering activities, which are based on green technological...

This paper develops an incomplete contract model of the licensing relationship to analyze the dynamic effects of licensing on R&D competition in the innovation market and to examine the rationale for often observed grant-back clauses. Of particular concern are how the consideration of future...

This paper studies the origins and consequences of international technology gaps. I develop an endogenous growth model where R&D efficiency varies across countries and productivity differences emerge from firm-level technology investments. The theory characterizes how innovation and learning...

Migration and trade are often linked through ethnic networks boosting bilateral trade. This study uses migration to quantify the importance of Ricardian technology differences for international trade. The framework provides the first panel estimates connecting country-industry productivity and...

This paper assesses the role of intra-sectoral spillovers in total factor productivity across Chinese producers in the chemical industry. We use a rich panel data-set of 12,552 firms observed over the period 2004 - 2006 and model output by the firm as a function of skilled and unskilled labor,...

Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) protect firms from imitation and are considered crucial to promote innovation and technological diffusion. This paper examines the impact of IPR on import sourcing decisions of multinationals. We consider a framework in which firms offshore production of an...

This paper studies international joint ventures, where foreign direct investment is performed by a foreign and a domestic firm that together set up a new firm, the joint venture. Employing administrative data on all international joint ventures in China from 1998 to 2007 - roughly a quarter of...