This paper proposes an international trade model under uncertainty in which international differences in financial development provide the basis for trade. When preferences exhibit risk vulnerability as defined by Gollier and Pratt [1996], financial development reduces individuals’ risk...

This paper investigates the welfare effects of international trade when technological idiosyncratic risk is distorted by optimistic and pessimistic managers. We show that free trade always improves the ex-ante welfare but sometimes lowers the ex-post welfare. Free trade commitment can be...

We draw attention to the role of economic geography in explaining important cross-sectional facts which are difficult to account for in existing models of industrialization. By construction, closed-economy models that stress the role of local demand in generating sufficient expenditure on...

This paper presents novel empirical evidence on key predictions of heterogeneous firm models by examining stock market reactions to the Canada-United States Free Trade Agreement of 1989 (CUSFTA). Using the uncertainty surrounding the agreement's ratification, I show that the pattern of abnormal...

We propose a quantitative framework for the analysis of industrialization in which specialization in manufacturing or agriculture is driven by comparative advantage and non-homothetic preferences. Countries are integrated through trade but trade is not costless and geographic position matters....