Case studies suggest exporters learn from clients. Econometric evidence is mixed. We use firm-level panel data on exporting and productivity with direct information on learning sources, including clients. We find: (a) firms who exported in the past are likely to learn more from clients (relative...

Confusion surrounding the appropriateness of long-run considerations in effluent regulation has arisen in the literature and recently carried over into textbooks. We use a factor input model under oligopsony to show that, when firms can influence the level of marginal damages, a linear pollution...

The paper investigates the productivity effects of the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement on Canadian manufacturing. It finds that Canadian tariff cuts increased exit rates among moderately productive non-exporting plants. This led to the reallocation of market share towards highly productive...

The relative efficiency of tariffs versus quotas is analyzed in a Cournot oligopoly with strategic investment, introducing quota licence fees to neutralize the international distributional effect. When such licence fees remove quota rents from foreign firms, then, for the case of constrained...

This paper considers the implications of changing trade barriers for the survival of Canadian manufacturing firms. The findings suggest that Canadian tariff reductions decreased the probability of survival for Canadian firms while declines in American tariffs increased that probability....

We examine restructuring, divestiture, and deregulation of a vertically integrated public utility, (e.g., electricity), from a public finance perspective. How an optimal restructuring plan for the utility depends on the cost of public funds and on the X-efficiency gains from privatization, how...

The effects of preferential trade areas (PTAs) on the investments by multinational enterprises and their implications for the welfare of members and non-members are studied in a model with two types of firms: national firms and multinational firms. In the presence of multinational activity PTAs...

Firms claim they do not rely heavily on patents. Yet they patent, as indicated by the large number of patents that are granted. This paper offers a possible resolution to this puzzle. It takes a simplified version of a duopoly innovation race and studies the patenting decision of an innovator...

A simple two-stage game is examined, where firms compete in prices by chosen pricing instruments. Those considered include a simple, uniform pricing technology and a promotional pricing technology like an advertised discount coupon. Consumers are separated by types, informed and uninformed....

This paper sets up a general oligopolistic equilibrium model with multi-product firms and union wage setting. In this model, we conduct two policy experiments. First, we show that deunionization induces a general decline in firm scale and scope, the respective reduction being more pronounced in...