I construct a trade model of empire, and use it to interpret some of the key patterns in the history of European imperialism.  I begin from the observation that trade was a key source of wealth for the colonies, and trade restrictions a key tool of extraction for colonial powers.  But the...

Panel data on 54 developing countries between 1960 and 2000 are used to investigate how the impact of opening to trade on economic growth is affected by wealth inequality.  The results suggest (a) that opening to trade tends to accelerate growth but (b) that the addition to growth depends...

Drawing on a new and comprehensive measure of logistics quality, our gravity model suggests logistics in the exporting and partner-country can have an important impact on bilateral exports.  A one standard deviation improvement in the exporter's logistics quality, which for example would...

The first issue we study is the impact of transport costs on the volume and nature of international trade.  To what extent has the rise in international trade been driven by changes in transport costs?  Why is cross-country and cross-regional experience so different?  Transport costs also...

This paper constructs country-level aggregates of trade facilitation measures from firm-level responses in the Enterprise Surveys and compares them with the Doing Business indicators, the Logistics Performance Index and the Enabling Trade Index.  Correlations between the data sources are low...

I address the issue of the `number` of International Monetary Equilibria that the international finance model of Geanokoplos and Tsomocos (2002) possesses. The mainstream competitive model has locally unique equilibria with respect to the real side of the economy; however, it manifests nominal...

I construct a theory of foreign interventions in which the political preferences of the foreign country are determined by its different economic ties with alternative local groups.  Stronger economic ties make a group more influenceable from the outside, and thus more willing to grant economic...

Fragmentation of stages of the production process is determined by international cost differences and by the benefits of co-location of related stages.  The interaction between these forces depends on the technological relationships between these stages.  This paper looks at both cost...

This paper documents industrial output growth around the poor periphery (Latin America, the European periphery, the Middle East and North Africa, Asia, and sub-Saharan Africa) between 1870 and 2007.  We provide answers to the following questions.  When and where did rapid industrial growth...

This paper analyses the impact of cost competitiveness and technology on export performance using a very rich panel datset of 12 manufacturing industries in 14 OECD countries for the period between 1970 and 1992.