Contests between groups are plagued by intra-group externalities (freeriding). Yet, costless incentive schemes that entirely avoid free-riding within a group might not be desirable, neither individually nor socially. In contests among two groups, a relatively weak (i.e., small or unproductive)...

This paper provides a new cross-country evaluation of competitiveness, focusing on the linkages between productivity and export performance among European economies. We use the information compiled in the Trade module of CompNet to establish new stylized facts regarding the joint distributions...

We quantify the effect of container technology on transport costs and trade by estimating the modal choice between containerization and breakbulk shipping using micro-level trade data. The model is motivated by novel facts that relate container usage to shipment, destination and firm...

We undertake a trade-growth accounting exercise by decomposing data on changes in bilateral international trade flows into their direct (endowment accumulation, productivity growth, changes in trade costs, changing preferences) and indirect components (general equilibrium effects). Furthermore,...

We propose a simple and flexible econometric approach to quantify ex-ante the "deep" impact of trade liberalization and the "hard" effects of protection with the empirical structural gravity model. Specifically, we argue that the difference between the estimates of border indicator variables for...

European integration, which culminated in the completion of the Single Market, the single currency and successive enlargements, is now faced with the question of strategic autonomy. Against this backdrop, the present paper has three objectives. First, it assesses the benefits of EU membership...

The present paper analyzes situations in which groups compete for rents. A major result in the literature has been that there are both cases where larger groups have advantages and cases where they have disadvantages. The paper provides two intuitive criteria which for groups with homogenous...

We study the role of inter-group differences in the emergence of conflict. In our setting, two groups compete for the right to allocate societys resources, and we allow for costly intergroup mobility. The winning group offers an allocation, that the opposition can either accept, or reject and...

We analyze equilibria of two-player contests where players have intention-based preferences. We find that players invest more effort compared to the case with selfish preferences and are even willing to exert effort when the monetary value of the prize converges to zero. As a consequence,...

We build and estimate a structural dynamic general equilibrium model of growth and trade. Trade affects growth through changes in consumer and producer prices that in turn stimulate or impede physical capital accumulation. At the same time, growth affects trade, directly through changes in...