China has defied the declining trend in domestic content in exports in many countries. We study China’s rising domestic content in exports using firm- and customs transaction-level data. Our approach embraces firm heterogeneity and hence reduces aggregation bias. We find that the substitution...

This paper studies how learning from neighboring firms affects new exporters’ performance and dynamics. We develop a statistical decision model in which a firm updates its prior belief about demand of a foreign market based on the number of neighbors currently selling there, the level and...

This paper proposes a general method to extend a standard input-output (IO) table to incorporate firm heterogeneity when portraying the domestic segment of global value chains in a country. We develop a quadratic optimization model to estimate an extended IO table that reports inter-sector...

We study how firms respond to import competition by increasing the speed of trade. We use data on all Portuguese textile and clothing exporters' monthly transactions and exploit the exogenous increase in competition following the removal of Multi-Fibre Arrangement (MFA) quotas on Chinese...

This paper proposes methods to incorporate firm heterogeneity in the standard IO-table based approach to portray the domestic segment of global value chains in a country. Using Chinese firm census data for both manufacturing and service sectors, along with constrained optimization techniques, we...

China’s increased trade with and investment in Africa have boosted the continent’s economic growth but have also generated considerable controversy. In this paper we investigate China’s outward direct investment ODI in Africa using macro and micro data. The aggregate data on China’s ODI...

This paper examines the impact of the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) epidemic on China’s trade. Using quarterly transaction-level trade data of all Chinese firms, we find that firms in regions with local transmission of SARS experienced lower import and export growth at both the...

This paper studies how firms’ offshoring decisions shape a country’s domestic production net- works. We develop a model in which heterogeneous firms source inputs from multiple industries located in different domestic regions and foreign countries. Input sourcing entails communication with...