Most industrialized countries today are facing historical demographic changes, paring increasing retirement with a declining labor force. We study the consequences of an increasing pensioner-worker ratio in a macroeconomic framework, which suggests a negative effect on total factor productivity....

How costly is the misallocation of production that we might expect to result from distortions such as market power, incomplete contracts, taxes, regulations, or corruption? This paper develops new tools for the study of misallocation that place minimal assumptions on firms' underlying...

The underlying model analyzes the first time foreign market entry decision of a representative investor who can choose between export and FDI. The model combines the proximity-concentration trade-off framework with the real option methodology and sheds light on the effects of productivity...

Quantitative results from a large class of international trade models depend critically on the elasticity of trade with respect to trade frictions. We develop a simulated method of moments estimator to estimate this elasticity from disaggregate price and trade-flow data using the Ricardian...

When Vietnam entered WTO in 2007 it was granted an accession period up to 2014. During this period tariffs would have to fall according to the accession agreement. This paper evaluates this 2007-2014 trade liberalization by building an applied general equilibrium model and calibrating it to the...

This paper characterizes the dynamic empirical properties of country export capabilities in order to inform modelling of the long-run behavior of comparative advantage. The starting point for our analysis is two strong empirical regularities in international trade that have previously been...

The European Union and Japan have recently launched negotiations about a bilateral free trade agreement as means of economic stimulation, with trade as a driving force to create growth and wealth. Since customs duties are already low, the success of the liberalization process hinges on the...

Using annual bilateral data over the period 1988-2011 for a panel of 24 industrialised and emerging economies, we analyse in a time-varying framework the determinants of output synchronisation in EMU (European Monetary Union) distinguishing between core and peripheral member states. The results...

This paper assesses whether the sensitivity of bilateral trade volumes to various trade cost factors is constant or varies across countries. It utilizes a random coeffcients model and analyses a cross-sectional sample of bilateral trade data for 96 countries in 2005. We expect the elasticity of...

This paper discusses political and economic aspects of Turkish accession. Under present rules, Turkey would have the greatest number of council votes within twenty years, and receive the largest budget transfer. Free migration may increase the Turkish immigrant population in Germany from 2 to...