Why is it that exporter productivity premia (EPP) differ so widely in size? We take this question to the theory and to the data. We derive the sectoral EPP in a standard heterogeneous firms trade model and apply the insights from the model to 13 years of data for all Danish manufacturing firms....

We analyze the role of imitation and innovation in promoting technological progress in new members of European Union: the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia. The two modes of technological development - innovation and imitation - are distinguished from one another by identifying the...

In this paper, we merge the heterogenous firm trade model of Melitz (2003) with the Ricardian model of Dornbusch, Fisher and Samuelson (DFS 1977) to explain how the pattern of international specialization and trade is determined by the interaction of comparative advantage, economies of scale,...

Using annual data for the period 1992 - 2012, this paper examines trade flows between China and its main trade partners in Asia, North America and Europe, and whether increasing trade has led to industrial structural adjustment and changes in China's trade patterns. The analysis is based on both...

We develop a model to analyze one mechanism under which stronger intellectual property rights (IPR) protection may improve the ability of firms in developing countries to break into export markets. A Northern firm with a superior process technology chooses either exports or technology transfer...

Why do borders still matter for economic activity? The reunification of Germany in 1990 provides a unique natural experiment for examining the effect of political borders on trade both in the cross-section and over time. With the fall of the Berlin Wall and the rapid formation of a political and...

Recent work by Anderson and van Wincoop (2003) establishes an empirical modelling strategy which takes full account of the structural, non-(log-)linear impact of trade barriers on trade in new trade theory models. Structural new trade theory models have never been used to evaluate and quantify...

We use a panel of Brazilian exporters, their products, and destination markets to document a set of regularities for multi-product exporters: (i) few top-selling products account for the bulk of a firm's exports in a market, (ii) the distribution of exporter scope (the number of products per...

We investigate the link between productivity of firms and their sourcing behavior. Following Antràs & Helpman (2004) we distinguish between domestic and foreign sourcing, as well as between outsourcing and vertical integration. A firm's choice is driven by a hold-up problem caused by lack of...