This paper assesses the role of a larger degree of common language use between the populations of two countries on the so-called extensive product margin of trade. We focus on the overlap of products exported or imported between any pair of countries. The results suggest that the effect of...

Proper measurement and aggregation of trade costs is of paramount importance for sound academic and policy analysis of the determinants - particularly those of policy - of economic outcomes. The international trade profession has witnessed significant new developments, both on the theoretical...

We use firm-level data for 15 countries and 13 manufacturing sectors to estimate firm-level productivity parameters and to establish representative country-sector-specific empirical productivity distributions. We use these distributions against the backdrop of multi-sector versions of the models...

We present a model, in which a small industrialised economy outsources part of its production into a small foreign country which is well endowed with low-skilled labour. We analyse under which conditions sinking trade costs stimulate outsourcing activities, thereby increasing the wage dispersion...

Previous empirical research has assumed that goods trade responds to goods trade preferentialism only, while other forms of preferentialism such as services trade or investment preferentialism are irrelevant for goods trade. This paper provides novel evidence for the gains from a broader scope...

This paper proposes a Bayesian estimation framework for panel-data sets with binary dependent variables where a large number of cross-sectional units is observed over a short period of time, and cross-sectional units are interdependent in more than a single network domain. The latter provides...