Using revised, updated, and consistent annual post-World War II data from the G-7 countries developed by us, we econometrically estimate and test alternative explanations of the structure of economic growth in a model with three inputs tangible capital, labor, and human capital which permits the...

In the Belle Époque, Belgium recorded an unprecedented trade boom, but growth in output per capita was lackluster. We seek to reconcile this ostensible paradox. Because of the sharp decline in both fixed and variable trade costs, the trade boom was as much about the expansion in the number of...

Empirical studies of firms within industries consistently report substantial heterogeneity in measures of performance such as size and productivity. This paper explores the consequences of joint heterogeneity on the supply side (sellers) and the demand side (buyers) in international trade using...

In this paper we revisit the relationship between institutions, human capital and development. We argue that empirical models that treat institutions and human capital as exogenous are misspecified both because of the usual omitted variable bias problems and because of differential measurement...

It has been suggested that countries which export in especially risky sectors will experience higher output volatility. This paper develops a measure of the riskiness of a country's pattern of export specialization, and illustrates its features across countries and over time. The exercise...

In this paper, I review evidence on changing global specialization in labor-intensive exporting. Production of apparel, footwear, furniture, and related products are how many low-income countries first enter export manufacturing. Just as China's rise as a powerhouse in these goods supplanted a...

International trade theory is a general-equilibrium discipline, yet most of the standard portfolio of research focuses on the production side of general equilibrium. In addition, we do not have a good understanding of the relationship between characteristics of goods in production and...

Trade policy depends on the extent to which the government wants to redistribute income as well as on a country's overall factor endowments and their distribution. While the government's desire to redistribute income itself is dependent on asset distribution, it is to a large extent also driven...

Chinese exports have become increasingly sophisticated. This has generated anxiety in developed countries as competitive pressure may increasingly be felt outside labor-intensive industries. Using product-level data on exports from different cities within China, this paper investigates the...

One might expect that differences in income elasticities in trade and/or differences in growth rates among countries would give rise to strong secular trends in real exchange rates; for example, fast-growing countries might need steady depreciation to get the world to accept their growing...