This paper develops a simple competitive model of CEO pay. It appears to explain much of the rise in CEO compensation in the US economy, without assuming managerial entrenchment, mishandling of options, or theft. CEOs have observable managerial talent and are matched to assets in a competitive...

Most real-world trade liberalizations decrease tariffs and increase quotas without completely abolishing them. We ask how decreases in tariffs and increases in quotas affect productivity in an economy with monopoly rights in the import-competing sector. We show that a reduction in a tariff can...

In the last five years the international macroeconomics literature has become increasingly concerned with global current account imbalances, with particular focus on the size and persistence of the US current account deficit. While much of the recent literature on global imbalances (e.g....

This paper analyzes the cross-country allocation and volume of multinational production, quantifies its barriers, and assesses its impact on welfare. From the patterns of multinational production across countries, three facts stand out: a small fraction of country-pairs engages in multinational...

The inertia of the local-currency prices of traded goods in the face of exchange-rate changes is a well-documented phenomenon in International Economics.This paper develops a frame-work for identifying the sources of local-currency price stability at each stage of the distribution chain. The...

We perform development decompositions measuring the effect of trade restrictions on TFP and labor productivity. An economy with two tradable and non-storable intermediate goods, used in the production of a non-tradable final good, is assumed. The solution of the static trade and factor...

What effects do more open trade policies have on transitional and long run growth rates? This is the central question in trade and growth. Yet, despite numerous empirical studies over the past twenty-five years there are almost no enduring, robust results on the importance of (openness to) trade...

Why do firms decide to offshore certain parts of their production process? What qualifies certain countries as particularly attractive locations to offshore? In this paper we address these questions with a theory of international production hierarchies in which teams arise endogenously to make...

This paper revisits three features of the data that are widely known: (a) there exists a high correlation between bilateral nominal and real exchange rates; (b) real exchange rate movements are highly persistent; and (c) real exchange rates are highly volatile. The paper attempts a joint, albeit...