This paper analyzes the effects of trade liberalisation on the political support for policies that redistribute income between workers in different sectors. We allow for worker heterogeneity and imperfect mobility of workers across sectors, giving rise to a trade-off between redistribution and...

In the struggle between the forces of free trade and the restrictive influence of insularism the latter recently seems to have the upper hand. This is illustrated by the referendum of June 23, 2016 where the United Kingdom (UK) voted to leave the European Union (EU). In this paper we evaluate...

Cultural and institutional differences among nations may result in differences in the ratios of marginal costs of goods in autarchy and thus be the basis of specialization and comparative advantage, as long as these differences are not eliminated by trade. We provide an evolutionary model of...

This paper introduces finance or credit in the Dixit-Stiglitz-Krugman (DSK) model of international trade. It identifies mechanisms by which finance can affect the main results of the conventional model. The key results are as follows. Perfect credit market does not affect number of varieties or...

Taxing internationally mobile factors of production has been dismissed as an inefficient means of raising tax revenue. This paper addresses the question of whether it is efficient to tax capital at source when labor markets and the taxation of lumpsum income suffer from imperfections. Four...

This paper analyzes regional public education policy in the presence of mobile workers. Labor market integration leads to fiscal competition, shifting the whole burden of taxation to immobile workers. In the case of mobile skilled workers, this results in income inequalities and inefficient low...

We address the trade effect of restrictive product standards on the margins of trade, by matching a detailed panel of French firm exports with a new database compiling the list of Sanitary and Phyto-Sanitary regulatory measures that have been raised as a concern in dedicated committees of the...

Recent quantitative trade models treat import tariffs as pure cost shifters so that their effects are similar to iceberg trade costs. We introduce revenue-generating import tariffs, which act as demand shifters, into the framework of Arkolakis, Costinot and Rodriguez-Clare (2012), and generalize...

Previous empirical research has assumed that goods trade responds to goods trade preferentialism only, while other forms of preferentialism – such as services trade or investment preferentialism – are irrelevant for goods trade. This paper provides novel evidence for the gains from a broader...

Gravity equations have been used for more than 50 years to estimate ex post the partial effects of trade costs on international trade flows, and the well-known - and traditionally presumed exogenous – “trade-cost elasticity” plays a central role in computing general equilibrium trade-flow...