Weak enforcement of international contracts can substantially reduce international trade. We develop a model where agents build reputations to overcome the difficulties that this institutional failure causes in a context of incomplete information. The model describes the interplay between...

Firms need to incur substantial sunk costs to break in foreign markets, yet many give up exporting shortly after their first experience, which typically involves very small sales. Conversely, other new exporters shoot up their foreign sales and expand to new destinations. We investigate a simple...

The paper explores the determinants of industry location across interwar Poland. After more than 120 years of political and economic separation, Poland was reunified at the end of 1918. In consequence, its industry faced massive structural changes: the removal of internal tariff barriers and...

We provide an analysis of the 2008-2009 trade collapse using microdata from a small open economy,Belgium. First, we find that changes in firm-country-product exports and imports occurred mostly atthe intensive margin: the number of firms, the average number of destination and origin markets...

This paper reviews the new approach to international trade based on firm heterogeneity in differentiated product markets. This approach explains a variety of features exhibited in disaggregated trade data, including the higher productivity of exporters relative to non-exporters, within-industry...

This paper analyses the interaction between credit constraints and trading behaviour. I construct a unique dataset containing firm-level trade transactions data, balance sheets and credit scores from an independent credit insurance company for Belgian manufacturing firms between 1999 and 2007....

We investigate the dramatic 2008–2009 trade collapse using microdata from a small open economy, Belgium. Belgian trade essentially fell because of reduced quantities and unit prices, rather than fewer firms involved in international transactions, fewer trading partners per firm, or fewer...

A variety of empirical and theoretical trade papers have suggested and documented a positive impact of trade on the productivity of firms. However, there is less consensus about the underlying mechanism at work. While trade papers focus on access to export markets, other papers stress the...

The aim of this study is to examine the extent to which Chinese and Indian autocomponent producers have advanced towards international best practice levels of productivity and quality. The report is based on a survey of nine car manufacturers in China and six in India; a range of general...

Using a detailed data set at the tariff line level, we find an emulator effect of multilateralism on subsequent regional trade agreements involving the US. We exploit the variation in the frequency with which the US has granted immediate duty free access (IDA) to its Free Trade Area partners...