Advocates of antidumping (AD) laws downplay their effects by arguing that the trade flows that are subject to AD are small and their distortions negligible. This paper is the first to counter that notion by quantifying the worldwide effect of AD laws on aggregate trade flows. The recent...

This paper shows that electoral incentives affect the occurrence of trade disputes. Focusing on WTO disputes filed by the United States during the 1995-2012 period, we show that U.S. presidents are more likely to initiate a dispute in the year preceding their re-election date. Moreover, disputes...

This paper shows that electoral incentives deter politicians from supporting trade liberalization. We focus on all major trade bills introduced since the early 1970s in the U.S. Congress, in which House and Senate members serve respectively two- and six-year terms and one third of senators face...

Fast Track Authority (FTA) is the institutional procedure in the Unites States whereby Congress grants to the President the power to negotiate international trade agreements. Under FTA, Congress can only approve or reject negotiated trade deals, with no possibility of amending them. In this...

One of the few stylized facts in international relations is that democracies, unlike autocracies, very rarely fight each other. We examine the sustainability of international peace between democracies and autocracies, where the crucial difference between these two political regimes is whether or...

This paper shows that uncertainty can lead firms to follow a gradual internationalization process. We describe a model in which firms are uncertain about their ability to earn profits in a foreign market and must decide whether or not to serve it, and whether to do so through exports or foreign...

The literature on antidumping (AD) has documented various aspects of this protectionist tool. However, a peculiar feature of AD has not received much attention: these measures are endogenous to the behavior of the exporting firms, which can adjust the dumping margin by changing their export...

Why are U.S. congressmen reluctant to support gun control regulations, despite the fact that most Americans are in favor of them? We argue that re-election motives can lead politicians to take a pro-gun stance against the interests of an apathetic majority of the electorate, but in line with the...

Over the last decades, the United States has become increasingly integrated in the world economy. Very low trade barriers and comparatively liberal migration policies have made these developments possible. What drove US congressmen to support the recent wave of globalization? While much of the...

We apply a simple method to study the relative quality of Chinese versus European products exported in the clothing sector after the end of the Multi-Fiber Arrangement. Based on the model of Foster et al (2008), we interpret the relative change of export prices and quantities sold in narrowly...