Firm-to-firm connections in domestic and international production networks play a fundamental role in economic outcomes. Firm heterogeneity and the sparse nature of firm-to-firm connections implicitly discipline network structure. We find that a large group of well-established statistical...

We reconcile international trade theory with findings of enormous plant-level heterogeneity in exporting and productivity. Our model extends basic Ricardian theory to accommodate many countries, geographic barriers, and imperfect competition. Fitting the model to bilateral trade among the United...

We map United States comparative advantage between 1980 and 1995, by trading partner and region, using Balassa's export-based index of Revealed Comparative Advantage (RCA). We find: temporally stable and ubiquitous US comparative advantage in differentiated producer goods (except disadvantage in...

We develop a Ricardian model of trade in which countries innovate ideas that diffuse across the globe. In this model, the forces of innovation and diffusion combine to shape trade substitution patterns. Innovation makes a country technologically distinct, reducing their substitutability with...

This paper highlights a tradeoff implied by a policy of export-led growth through currency undervaluation. While undervaluation can foster domestic manufacturing in countries like China by sustaining trade surplus, it also can harm a country's comparative advantage by altering the composition of...

The share in world exports of manufactured goods of U.S. multinational firms, including their majority-owned overseas affiliates, has been nearly stable since 1966. This stability, over a period in which the export share of the U.S. as a geographical entity was declining for the most part,...

We build a quantitative model of trade with multistage manufacturing value chains, which features iceberg trade costs and technology differences across both goods and production stages. We estimate technology and trade costs via the simulated method of moments, matching bilateral shipments of...

Many of the exports of developing countries are channeled through global value chains (GVCs), which also act as conduits for new technologies. However, new capabilities and productive employment remain limited so far to a tiny sliver of globally integrated firms. GVCs and new technologies...

The comparative advantage of many cities is based on their efficiency in the production of 'functions', e.g., business services such as finance, law, engineering, or similar functions that are used by firms in a wide range of sectors. Firms that use these functions may choose to source them...

Exploiting a large migration of farmers to the West of Brazil between 1950 and 2010, we study how migration shapes aggregate and regional comparative advantage. We document that farmers emigrating from regions with high employment in an activity are more likely to work in that activity and have...