This study develops a model of trade that highlights the effects of the interconnection of country-specific communications networks as a driving force behind trade in high-tech products with positive transport costs. By constructing a two-country model of monopolistic competition with two...

In this paper, we offer an explanation why globalization (falling trade costs) may increase the government incentive to block foreign takeover of domestic firms and increase its incentive to allow mergers among national firms. This creation of `national champions' occurs not only because the...

Although the GATT prohibits discriminatory import tariffs, it includes means for circumventing this prohibition. The previous literature uses static models and discriminatory tariffs increase welfare. In a dynamic model, if governments lack the ability to precommit, this is not necessarily true....

We examine firms' incentives to protect their non-cooperative R&D investments from spilling over to competitors. We show that, contrary to findings in most of the literature, the lack of full appropriability can lead to an increase in R&D investments. Consequently, as long as the R&D spillovers...

We investigate the impact of alternative unionization structures on firms' incentives to invest on cost-reducing R&D and to form Research Joint Ventures (RJVs), in the presence of R&D spillovers. We show that if firms invest non-cooperatively and spillovers are low, R&D investments are higher...

Technology effects, business process development, and productivity growth are considered in the context of a single company: Wal-Mart. The starting point is the 2001 McKinsey Global Institute report, which finds that over 1995-2000, a quarter of U.S. productivity growth is attributable to the...

In this paper the structure of intra-firm trade within the context of transfer price manipulation by a multinational firm is endogenized. "High" and "low" values of host-country tax rates give rise to intra-firm trade in final goods and intermediate inputs, and "intermediate" values of the tax...

In this paper the effect of voluntary imports expansions (VIEs) on welfare in a dynamic game is analysed. It is found that (1) there exists a Markov perfect Nash equilibrium (MPNE) and a unique stable steady state; (2) with habit formation in consumption, the welfare and output for each firm are...

This paper shows that the issues in the recent discussion over the `home-market effects' are more complicated than previously thought. It is shown that, in general, market size matters for industrial structure even when both the homogeneous and the differentiated goods face transport costs. The...