Structural transformation depends not only on how much countries export but also on what they export and with whom they trade. This paper breaks new ground in analyzing India's exports by the technological content, quality, sophistication, and complexity of the export basket. We identify five...

Empirical evidence on the relationship between democracy and economic reforms is limited to few reforms, countries, and years. This paper studies the impact of democracy on the adoption of economic reforms using a new dataset on reforms in the financial, capital and banking sectors, product...

This paper examines the mechanisms through which output volatility is related to trade openness using an industry-level panel dataset of manufacturing production and trade. The main results are threefold. First, sectors more open to international trade are more volatile. Second, trade is...

We revisit the question of the quantitative benefits of WTO trade agreements in a setup that is non-standard from the traditional trade policy point of view. We show that in a New Keynesian model, unilateral trade liberalization reduces welfare due to terms-of-trade deterioration, creating an...

This paper provides an overview of the possible linkages between state-owned banks, privatization, and banking sector crises. Data on privatizations in over 65 countries is used together with data from the banking crisis literature to consider the relationship between state-owned banks and...

This paper explores the causes of India's productivity surge around 1980, more than a decade before serious economic reforms were initiated. Trade liberalization, expansionary demand, a favorable external environment, and improved agricultural performance did not play a role. We find evidence...

This paper employs newly constructed measures for productivity differentials, external imbalances, and commodity terms of trade to estimate a panel cointegrating relationship between real exchange rates and a set of fundamentals for a sample of 48 industrial countries and emerging markets. It...

How do signatures required for exporting and business registration procedures affect the volume and composition of country's exports? To answer this question, I develop a model where a country can export two types of products: differentiated and homogeneous. I show that export signatures and...

The paper investigates whether the market size of a regional trade agreement (RTA) is a determinant of foreign direct investment (FDI) received by countries participating in the RTA. This hypothesis is tested on a sample of 71 developing countries during the period 1980-99. Evidence is found...