The fragmentation of production across borders allows firms to make and export final goods, or to perform only intermediate stages of production by processing imported inputs for re-exporting. We examine how financial frictions affect companies’ choice between processing and ordinary trade -...

We document key features of the deepening economic relationship between Brazil and China. This is evident from sharply increased bilateral trade and foreign direct investment flows and also from enhanced cohesion of negotiating positions in international fora. Data presented show bilateral trade...

We examine the gains from Chinese accession to the WTO. Using Arkolakis, Costinot, and Rodríguez-Clare (2012) we provide a new quantitative welfare measure by dividing the manufacturing sector into import and export sub-sectors. We then evaluate how the increased openness caused by China's...

We investigate how protectionist policies influence economic growth. Our empirical strategy exploits an extraordinary tax scandal that gave rise to an unexpected change of government in Sweden. A free-trade majority in parliament was overturned by a protectionist majority in 1887. We employ the...

This paper examines how varying antidumping methodologies applied within the WTO differ in the extent to which they reduce targeted exports. We show that antidumping duties, on average, hit Chinese exporters harder than those of other targeted countries. This difference can be traced back in...

This paper studies the performance of China's exports during the 2008-2009 financial crisis. It focuses on the speed at which China's exports were hit by this downturn. Product-country monthly exports data is utilized. It is found that GDP growth rates of importing countries play an important...

In the absence of financial frictions, the purpose of thin capitalization rules is to limit multinational firms’ possibilities of engaging in tax planning via debt shifting. This paper analyzes the effects of thin capitalization rules in the case where firms have limited access to external...

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 of...

This paper analyzes the economic effects of content-based import tariffs China imposed on imported auto parts. While China's policy penalized any firm that assembled cars with less than 60 percent Chinese content, the policy was most likely to affect foreign affiliated firms who were more likely...

Global value chains have fundamentally transformed international trade and development in recent decades. We use matched firm-level customs and manufacturing survey data, together with Input-Output tables for China, to examine how Chinese firms position themselves in global production lines and...