This paper adopts and develops the "fear of floating" theory to explain the decision to implement a de facto peg, the choice of anchor currency among multiple key currencies, and the role of central bank independence for these choices. We argue that since exchange rate depreciations are...

This paper investigates the impact of outsourcing on sectoral reallocation in the U.S. over the period 1947-2007, and on the rise in services in particular. Roughly 40% of the growth of the service sector comes from professional and business services. This is an unusual industry as more than 90%...

We consider the dynamic relationship between product market entry regulation and equilibrium unemployment. The main theoretical contribution is combining a job matching model with monopolistic competition in the goods market and individual bargaining. We calibrate the model to US data and...

This paper estimates a structural model of economic geography using cross-country data on per capita income, bilateral trade, and the relative price of manufacturing goods. More than 70% of the variation in per capita income can be explained by the geography of access to markets and to sources...

This paper combines establishment level production data with international trade data by port to examine the impact of accession to the EEC on the spatial distribution of UK manufacturing. We use this data to test the predictions from economic geography models of how external trade affects the...

Relative wages vary considerably across regions of the United Kingdom, with skill-abundant regions exhibiting lower skill premia than skill-scarce regions. This paper shows that the location of economic activity is correlated with the variation in relative wages. U.K. regions with low skill...

This paper examines how the geography of UK international trade has changed since the United Kingdom’s accession to the European Economic Community, using a newly constructed dataset that gives a detailed breakdown of the United Kingdom’s imports and exports by both port of entry and exit...

The paper explores the determinants of industry location across interwar Poland. After more than 120 years of political and economic separation, Poland was reunified at the end of 1918. In consequence, its industry faced massive structural changes: the removal of internal tariff barriers and...

We provide an analysis of the 2008-2009 trade collapse using microdata from a small open economy,Belgium. First, we find that changes in firm-country-product exports and imports occurred mostly atthe intensive margin: the number of firms, the average number of destination and origin markets...