Starting with Romer [1987] and Rivera-Batiz-Romer [1991] economists have been able to model how trade enhances growth through the creation and import of new varieties. In this framework, international trade increases economic output through two channels. First, trade raises productivity levels...

This paper presents assesses of the contribution of inward FDI to China's recent rapid economic growth using a two stage growth accounting approach. Recent econometric literature focuses on testing whether Chinese growth depends on inward FDI rather than measuring the contribution. Foreign...

This paper sets out the political economy behind Asian governments' participation in a revived Bretton Woods System. The overriding problem for these governments is to rapidly integrate a large pool of underemployed labor into the industrial sector. The principal constraints are inefficient...

We develop a simple model of the choice between exploiting a technology in another country via export and via direct foreign investment. The model points to the destination country's size, level of technological sophistication, and distance from the source as factors in the decision. Moreover,...

The Global Financial Crisis (GFC) brought to the fore the limits of the Chinese export led-growth strategy and the need for Chinese rebalancing of its international business approaches. Our paper takes stock of what may be the new chapter of Chinese outward-mercantilism, which aims at securing a...

Violent conflicts, particularly at election times in Africa, are a common cause of instability and economic disruption. This paper studies how firms react to electoral violence using the case of Kenyan flower exporters during the 2008 post-election violence as an example. The violence induced a...

It is commonly argued that Japanese trade protection has enabled the nurturing and development internationally competitive firms. The results in our paper suggest that when it comes to TFP growth, this view of Japan is seriously erroneous. We find that lower tariffs and higher import volumes...

Taiwan was perhaps the first developing country to adopt an export-oriented trade strategy after World War II. The factors usually associated with big shifts in policy--a macroeconomic crisis, a change in political power or institutions, lobbying by export interests, pressure from international...

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...

Do trade reforms that significantly reduce import barriers lead to faster economic growth? In the two decades since Rodríguez and Rodrik's (2000) critical survey of empirical work on this question, new research has tried to overcome the various methodological problems that have plagued previous...