This paper examines the effect of Wal-Mart's entry into Mexico on Mexican manufacturers of consumer goods. Guided by firm interviews that suggested substantial heterogeneity across firms in how they responded to Wal-Mart's entry, we develop a dynamic industry model in which firms decide whether...

We develop a new model of multi-product firms which invest to improve both the quality of their individual products and of their brand. Because of flexible manufacturing, products closer to firms' core competence have lower costs, so they produce more of them, and also have higher incentives to...

This study examines developments at the plant-product level preceding an expansion into foreign markets. It relies on very detailed Mexican data for 1994-2004, a period of liberalization in US trade policy vis a vis Mexico, mandated by the North American Free Trade Agreement. Our approach is...