I build a simple dynamic model of the formation of an international social network of importers and exporters. Firms can only export into markets in which they have a contact. They acquire new contacts both at random, and via their network of existing contacts. This model explains (i) the...

Exporters differ considerably in terms of export-market participation over time and employment size. But this marked diversity among exporters is not reflected in their workforce composition regarding commonly observed worker skills or occupations. Using Brazilian linked employer-employee data,...

One of the main purposes of our studies of U.S.-based multinational firms has been to examine the relationship between direct investment by U.S. firms and the export trade of the United States, a subject of bitter controversy for at least the last fifteen years. Changes over time in trade flows...

The United States became a net exporter of manufactured goods around 1910 after a dramatic surge in iron and steel exports began in the mid-1890s. This paper argues that natural resource abundance fueled the expansion of iron and steel exports in part by enabling a sharp reduction in the price...

We study how international trade affects manufacturing employment and the relative wage of unskilled workers when goods and services are traded with different intensities. Manufacturing trade reduces manufacturing prices worldwide, which reduces manufacturing employment if manufactures and...

Short run gravity is a geometric weighted average of long run gravity and bilateral capacity. The model features (i) joint trade costs endogenous to bilateral volumes, (ii) long run gravity as a limiting case of efficient investment in bilateral capacities, (iii) a structural ratio of short run...

This Paper challenges two widely held views: first that trade performance has been the primary reason for the declining share of manufacturing employment in the United States and other industrial economies, and second that recent productivity growth in manufacturing has actually been quite rapid...

In this paper, we examine the impact of China's growth on developing countries that specialize in manufacturing. Over 2000-2005, manufacturing accounted for 32% of China's GDP and 89% of its merchandise exports, making it more specialized in the sector than any other large developing economy....

We study the instability of hyper-specialization of exports. We have two main findings. (1) Specializations are surprisingly unstable: Export ranks are not persistent, and new top products and destinations replace old ones. Measurement error is unlikely to be the main or only determinant of this...

We investigate the role of industry specialization in horizontal cross-border mergers and acquisitions. We find that acquirers from more specialized industries in a country are more likely to buy foreign targets in countries that are less specialized in these same industries. The role of...