We illustrate a new source of comparative advantage that is generated by countries' different ability to adjust to technological change. Our model introduces substitution of workers in codifiable (routine) tasks with more efficient machines, a process extensively documented in the labor...

We illustrate a new source of comparative advantage that is generated by countries’ different ability to adjust to technological change. Our model introduces substitution of workers in codifiable (routine) tasks with more efficient machines, a process extensively documented in the labor...

As China's opening-up grows wider under the Belt and Road Initiative, the exploration and construction of free trade ports have received increasing attention. In 2018, China's first free trade port was settled in Hainan instead of Shanghai. In 2019, after the Lingang New Area of China (Shanghai)...

This article investigates empirically the interaction between countries' Comparative Advantage Following (CAF) development strategy and Aid for Trade (AfT ) interventions in influencing the extent of structural change in production. Based on the Generalized Methods of Moments and an unbalanced...

Developing countries today face multiple interlinked macroeconomic, financial, climate, and development challenges. South-South cooperation is an important element for developing countries to meet these challenges individually and collectively, and in multilateral North-South dialogue and global...

Developing countries today face multiple interlinked macroeconomic, financial, climate, and development challenges. South-South cooperation is an important element for developing countries to meet these challenges individually and collectively, and in multilateral North-South dialogue and global...

The proportion of multiple jobholders (moonlighters) is negatively correlated with productivity (wages) in cross-sectional and time series data, but positively correlated with education. We develop a model of the labor market to understand these seemingly contradictory facts. An income effect...

Heterodox feminist scholars have argued that global trade patterns reflect patterns of competitive advantage-rather than comparative advantage-and that that competitive advantage is gendered. Further, they have suggested that we need more theoretical and empirical scholarship in this area. This...

Purpose of the article: The Ready-Made Garment (RMG) industry remains the most crucial segment of Bangladesh's economy besides the agricultural sector in terms of foreign currency earning via export and employment generation. Several international studies predict that Bangladesh will be the next...

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...

This paper reconstructs Revealed Comparative Advantages (RCA) and Economic Complexity Indices (ECI) for a large number of countries in the second half of the 19th century, by using data from the catalogues of five universal exhibitions held in Paris in 1855, 1867, 1878, 1889, and 1900. This...

The WTO Global Trade Model is employed to project the medium-run economic effects of a global trade conflict. The trade conflict scenario is based on recent estimates in the literature of the difference between cooperative and non-cooperative tariffs. The study provides three main insights....

This paper is a methodological contribution to the calculation and use of Revealed Comparative Advantage (RCA) indexes. We first explain why the RCA index of Contribution to the Trade Balance (CTB) is theoretically relevant. However, as other RCA indexes might also be reliable measures of...

We analyze how trade openness matters for interstate conflict over productive resources. Our analysis features a terms-of-trade channel that makes security policies trade-regime dependent. Specifically, trade between two adversaries reduces each one's incentive to arm given the opponent's...

Gender differences in math performance are now small in developed countries and they cannot explain on their own the strong under-representation of women in math-related fields. This latter result is however no longer true once gender differences in reading performance are also taken into...

We estimate the impact of the 2012 removal of the Canadian Wheat Board's (CWB) single-desk on the spatial pattern of durum wheat acres in Western Canada. We analyze changes in durum seeded acres with a panel regression and Census Agricultural Region data from 2004-2016. Our results indicate that...

This paper uses a theory-based measure of productivity-based comparative advantage to examine the trade performance of developing Asian economies in manufacturing and services over the 1995-2011 period. We find that the growth in service exports was nearly as rapid as that in manufacturing over...

In this chapter we discuss the role of natural resources and endowment structures on structural change. Departing from theories of trade that stress specialization according to one's comparative advantages as the key route to development, we articulate an alternative point of view on the role of...

Growth in service exports has improved countries' per capita incomes, reduced over-reliance on goods exports, and promoted economic diversification. However, the growth has not been uniform across regions and countries. Africa lags behind in service exports. This paper examines the...

We build a quantitative model of trade with multistage manufacturing value chains, which features iceberg trade costs and technology differences across both goods and production stages. We estimate technology and trade costs via the simulated method of moments, matching bilateral shipments of...

The comparative advantage of many cities is based on their efficiency in the production of 'functions', e.g., business services such as finance, law, engineering, or similar functions that are used by firms in a wide range of sectors. Firms that use these functions may choose to source them...

Exploiting a large migration of farmers to the West of Brazil between 1950 and 2010, we study how migration shapes aggregate and regional comparative advantage. We document that farmers emigrating from regions with high employment in an activity are more likely to work in that activity and have...

The aim of this paper is to identify the sectors in which the Republic of Macedonia has a comparative advantage in export to the other member states of CEFTA 2006 (Central European Free Trade Agreement). The revealed comparative advantage of the Republic of Macedonia (RM) in relation to other...

This paper studies the factors of comparative advantage within global value chains relying on a framework where comparative advantage is measured through the interaction of country and industry characteristics. We find that good institutions give a comparative advantage in the later stages of...