Almost Ideal gravity associates zero trade flows with variable and fixed trade cost variation in a flexible demand system. Latent trade shares between non-partners are inferred from the Tobit estimator applied to trade among 75 countries and 25 sectors in 2006. Latent Trade Bias (LTB) is the...

The effects of geography and productivity on the global pattern of production are captured here in a specific factors gravity model. Simple enough for sharp results, the model is yet rich enough to contain the high dimensional productivity frictions in production and distribution of a many...

Mutual causation of predation and trade induces novel effects of commercial policy in this paper. The model can explain trade volume responses to market widening initiatives that are otherwise puzzlingly 'too big' or 'too small'. Efficient commercial policy (broadly defined) depends crucially on...

Some cultural goods, like clothes and films, are consumed socially and are thus characterized by the same consumption network externalities as languages. At the same time, producers of new cultural goods in any one country draw on the stock of ideas generated by previous cultural production in...

This paper surveys the measurement of trade costs --- what we know, and what we don't know but may usefully attempt to find out. Partial and incomplete data on direct measures of costs go together with inference on implicit costs from trade flows and prices. Total trade costs in rich countries...

We model imperfect contract enforcement when repudiators and their victims default to spot trading. The interaction between the contract and spot markets under improved enforcement can exacerbate repudiation and reduce contract execution, harming all traders. Improved contract execution benefits...

Motivated by evidence on the importance of incomplete information and networks in international trade, we investigate the supply of 'network intermediation.' We hypothesize that the agents who become international trade intermediaries first accumulate networks of foreign contacts while working...

International economic integration yields large potential welfare effects, even in a static constant returns competitive world economy. Our method is novel. The effect of border barriers on trade flows is often inferred from gravity models. But their rather atheoretic structure precludes welfare...

Market exchange is subject to an endogenously determined level of predation which impedes specialization and gains from trade. We construct a model in which utility-maximizing agents opt between careers in production and careers in predation. Three types of equilibria may emerge: autarky (with...

A network/search view of international trade in differentiated products is proposed. It is shown that this view can explain the importance of ethnic and extended family ties in trade, the success of diversified trading intermediaries such as Japan's sogo shosha, and the ubiquity of government...