China has become a major exporter of fresh fruits and vegetables in recent years. Between 2002and 2006, China’s fresh fruit and vegetable exports rose continuously, more than doubling in valueto reach nearly $5 billion US in 2006. The net trade position for fresh fruits and vegetables hasalso...

As a pragmatic definition applied throughout this paper, an import surge is considered a situation in which the quantity or value of imports suddenly exceeds a "normal" level. This somewhat loose concept leaves questions as to how "suddenly", "normal" and "excess" should be defined precisely,...

The need for external capital (FDI) inflow to finance the current account deficit of developing countries cannot be over-emphasized. Foreign direct investment takes predominance over other types of capital inflow into developing countries. How would an increase in FDI and a reduction in import...

This paper documents for the first time the relationship between profitability and three typesof international trade activities – exports, imports and two-way trade. It uses unique newrepresentative data for manufacturing enterprises from Germany, one of the leading actorson the world market...

An emerging literature on international activities of heterogeneous firms documents thatexporting firms are more productive than firms that only sell on the national market. Thispositive exporter productivity premium shows up in a large number of empirical studies aftercontrolling for observed...