In our European Economic Review (2002) paper, we used pre-1998 data on countries participating in and leaving currency unions to estimate the effect of currency unions on trade using (then-) conventional gravity models. In this paper, we use a variety of empirical gravity models to estimate the...

We incorporate trade imbalances into a quantitative model of bilateral trade in manufactures, dividing the world into forty countries. Fitting the model to 2004 data on GDP and bilateral trade we calculate how relative wages, real wages, and welfare would differ in a counterfactual world with...

A large and growing share of international trade is carried on airplanes. Air cargo is many times more expensive than maritime transport but arrives in destination markets much faster. We model firms' choice between exporting goods using fast but expensive air cargo and slow but cheap ocean...

This paper presents numerical simulation results that suggest that China can both reduce its trade imbalance and receive welfare benefits by switching the value added tax (VAT) regime from the current destination principle to an origin principle. With the tax on exports exceeding that no longer...

This paper focuses on two core tax design issues that arise in addressing current fiscal challenges It first explores the idea, prominent in troubled Eurozone countries, of a 'fiscal devaluation:' shifting from social contributions to the VAT as a way to mimic a nominal devaluation. Empirical...

We study the consequences of protectionism for macroeconomic fluctuations. First, using high-frequency trade policy data, we present fresh evidence on the dynamic effects of temporary trade barriers. Estimates from country-level and panel VARs show that protectionism acts as a supply shock,...

We develop a method for decomposing countries' observed export prices into quality versus quality-adjusted-price components using information contained in their trade balances. Holding observed export prices constant, countries with surpluses are inferred to offer higher quality than countries...

Using panel structural VAR analysis and quarterly data from four industrialized countries, we document that an increase in government purchases leads to an expansion in output and private consumption, a deterioration in the trade balance, and a depreciation of the real exchange rate (i.e., a...

This paper proposes a novel international transmission mechanism based on the assumption of deep habits. The term deep habits stands for a preference specification according to which consumers form habits on a good-by-good basis. Under deep habits, firms face more elastic demand functions in...

We study how changes in trade barriers contributed to the dynamics of the US trade balance and real exchange rate since 1980 - a period when trade tripled. Using two dynamic trade models, we decompose fluctuations in the trade balance into terms related to trade integration (global and...