Male and female labor are imperfect substitutes and some sectors are more suitable for female employment than others. Clearly, expansions of those sectors that use female labor intensively must affect aggregate female labor force participation (FLFP). We suggest that FLFP actually drops when...

An increasing number of oil market experts argue that OPEC members substantially overstate their oil reserves. While the economic implications could be dire, the incentives for overreporting remain unclear. This paper analyzes these incentives, showing that oil exporters may overreport to raise...

With the help of a simple Ricardian model, this paper explores the role of industrial policy in self-enforcing trade agreements. A first part shows that the optimal self-enforcing trade agreement includes subsidies to inefficient, import-competing sectors. Second, when by some exogenous or...

Recent trade data exhibit the following four empirical regularities: (i) countries import only a small fraction of all traded varieties (ii) per capita income and the number of imported varieties correlate positively (iii) per capita income and trade shares correlate positively and, finally,...

Male and female labor are imperfect substitutes and some sectors are more suitable for female employment than others. Clearly, expansions of those sectors that use female labor intensively must affect aggregate female labor force participation (FLFP). We suggest that FLFP actually drops when...

Recent trade data exhibit the following four empirical regularities: (i) countries import only a small fraction of all traded varieties (ii) per capita income and the number of imported varieties correlate positively (iii) per capita income and trade shares correlate positively and, finally,...

An increasing number of oil market experts argue that OPEC members substantially overstate their oil reserves. While the economic implications could be dire, the incentives for overreporting remain unclear. This paper analyzes these incentives, showing that oil exporters may overreport to raise...

We document that in the European car industry, exchange rate pass-through is larger for low than for high quality cars. To rationalize this pattern, we develop a model of quality pricing and international trade based on the preferences of Musa and Rosen (1978). Firms sell goods of heterogeneous...

Some observers argue that increased real integration has led to greater co-movement of prices internationally. We examine the evidence for cross-border price spillovers among economies participating in the pan-Asian cross-border production networks. Starting with country-level data, we find that...

This paper builds up an extension to the Mussa and Rosen (1978) model of quality pricing under perfect competition. Our model incorporates decreasing returns to scale. First, we predict that exchange rate shocks are imperfectly passed through into prices. Second, prices of low quality goods are...