Management has a large effect on the productivity of large firms. But does management matter in micro and small firms, where the majority of the labor force in developing countries works? We develop 26 questions that measure business practices in marketing, stock-keeping, record-keeping, and...

We conduct a field experiment in Sri Lanka providing informal firms incentives to formalize. Information about the registration process and reimbursement of direct costs has no effect. Payments equivalent to one-half to one month (alternatively, 2 months) of the median firm's profits leads to...

In contrast to recent literature, we show that market access requirements (MARs) can be implemented in a procompetitive manner even in the absence of threats in related markets. By focusing on subsidies that are paid only when the requirement is met, we show that a MAR can increase aggregate...

Supply chain disruptions, which have become commonplace, are often associated with globalization and trade. Little is known about optimal policy in the face of insecure supply chains. Should governments promote resilience by subsidizing backup sources of input supply? Should they encourage firms...

In this paper we ask whether a policy of targeted export promotion can raise domestic welfare when several oligopolistic industries all draw on the same scarce factor of production. Our point of departure is one of Cournot duopoly in which a single home firm competes with a single foreign firm...

But the disappointments can also be attributed to the preferences because they discouraged additional value-addition in assembly and stimulated the use of expensive fabrics that were unlikely to be produced locally. When the MFA was removed, constrained countries such as China moved strongly...

We establish the following stylized facts: (1) Exports are characterized by Big Hits, (2) the Big Hits change from one period to the next, and (3) these changes are not explained by global factors like global commodity prices. These conclusions are robust to excluding extractable products (oil...

Existing theories of trade agreements suggest that GATT/WTO efforts to reign in export subsidies represent an inefficient victory for exporting governments that comes at the expense of importing governments. Building from the Cournot delocation model first introduced by Venables (1985), we...

Because China's economic structure is different from that in OECD countries, using conventional neo-classical competitive trade models to analyze the welfare and trade impacts of trade related policy change can be misleading. In particular, both the exchange rate regime and output and pricing...

The Constitution of 1787 was designed to give Congress powers over trade policy that it lacked under the Articles of Confederation. The Washington administration was split over whether to use these powers to raise revenue or to retaliate against Britain's discriminatory trade policies. Obsessed...