International trade patterns at the product level are surprisingly dynamic. The majority of trade relationships exist for just a few, often only one to three, years. In this paper, I examine empirically the duration in German import trade at the 8-digit product level from 1995 to 2005. I find...

This paper explores official trade data to identify patterns of smuggling in international trade. Our main measure of interest is the difference in matched partner trade statistics, i.e., the extent to which the recorded export value in the source country deviates from the reportedimport value...

After World War II, town twinning became popular, notably in Germany. This was mainly a reaction to the war experience, and it was aimed at creating renewed international understanding and co-operation between German cities and cities in other countries. The contacts created by town twinning...

We document key features of the deepening economic relationship between Brazil and China. This is evident from sharply increased bilateral trade and foreign direct investment flows and also from enhanced cohesion of negotiating positions in international fora. Data presented show bilateral trade...

This paper investigates the role of firm productivity in drawing firm boundaries in global sourcing. Our analysis focuses on how productivity affects the allocation of ownership rights between the headquarter of a firm and an intermediate input supplier (vertical integration vs. outsourcing), as...

Language is a strong and robust determinant of international trade patterns: Countries sharing a common language trade significantly more with each other than countries using different languages, holding other factors constant. In this paper, we show that this trade-promoting effect of language...

Quantifying the welfare effects of trade liberalization is a core issue in international trade. Existing frameworks assume perfect labor markets and therefore ignore the effects of aggregate employment changes for welfare. We develop a quantitative trade framework which explicitly models labor...

What insights can be gained from bringing the theory of the firm to the global economy? I discuss several new features of the world economy that can be explained by incorporating the theory of the firm into the theory of international trade. Among the new features I discuss are the move to...

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...

If a free trade agreement (FTA) is characterized by the exchange of market access with a large and competitive trading partner, the agreement can cause a leakage of protectionist benefits to domestic industry from lobbying against external tariff cuts. This rent destruction effect of an FTA can...