Migration restrictions are pervasive and severe. Their worldwide enactment starting in the 1920's constituted a fundamental policy shift for a number of countries and for the world as whole. Yet, very little is currently known about the quantitative consequences of these barriers to labor...

This paper examines the hypothesis that a greater stock of migrants in New Zealand from a particular country leads to more trade between that country and New Zealand. The literature suggests that migrants can stimulate trade by lowering transaction costs, and by bringing with them preferences...

I examine the relationship between trading blocs and Foreign Direct Investment (FDI). Firms in the model serve foreign markets either by exporting or by setting up plants abroad, which is FDI. I find that countries forming a bloc could attract FDI from non-member countries. However, I show by...

The one-to-one mapping between cross-country differences in capital returns and the direction of international capital flows is broken in a multisector world where international factor price differences are driven by technology differences. A technology-backward or low-return-to-capital country...

This paper shows how the institutional rules imposed on its signatories by the GATT created a strategic incentive for countries to liberalize gradually. Free trade can never be achieved if punishment for deviation from a trade agreement is limited to a 'withdrawal of equivalent concessions.'...

This paper investigates whether there is a link between financing costs and international trade patterns, and if so, whether this link is determined by the strength of trade and financial ties between trading partners. The potential importance of these considerations stems from the fact that...

Mezzeti and Dinopoulos (1991) show that a free trade agreement (trade liberalization) decreases wage rate. However, Naylor (1998) shows that trade liberalization increases wage rate. Both papers consider tariff as exogenously given. In this paper we show that these conflicting results can be...

The paper refers to capacity utilisation, applying a short-cut that is sometimes used in business cycle research to yearly GDP and investment data from 1960 to the present for 22 countries. The basic idea is that the empirical short-run fluctuations of the capital output ratio v are mainly due...

One type of regulation that has recently started to attract the attention of policymakers regarding artisanal fisheries is that of Territorial Use Rights (commonly known as TURFs in the literature). TURFs basically consist in the allocation of fishing rights to individuals and/or groups to fish...

In a typical corporate hierarchy, the manager is delegated the authority to make decisions that set directions for the organization, employ subordinates and contract with external suppliers. This paper explains when such delegation of authority can be optimal, using a model of a firm with three...