Data on sales of memory modules are used to explore several aspects of e-retail demand. There is a strong relationship between e-retail sales to a given state and sales tax rates that apply to purchases from online retailers. This suggests that there is substantial substitution between online...

Most items are sold to consumers by retail stores. Stores have two features that distinguish them from auctions. First, the price is posted and a consumer who values the good at more than the posted price is sold the good. Second, the sale takes place as soon as the consumer decides to buy. In...

This paper provides a new heterogeneous firm model for trade where firms differ in their productivity and experience different market demand shocks. The model incorporates variations in trade policy, trade preferences, and the rules of origin needed to obtain them, to reflect real world...

Time is money, and distance matters. We model the interaction of these truisms, and show the implications for global specialization and trade: products where timely delivery is important will be produced near the source of final demand, where wages will be higher as a result. In the model,...

Backcasting upward bias in price index over long periods of time yields levels of real consumption two or four centuries ago that are implausibly low, raising the possibility that price index bias for important products may have been zero or even negative at some point in the past. This paper...

Available estimates of tariff equivalents of quotas and welfare calculations on the costs of MFA quotas for developing countries are based on the premise of perfect competition in both product and license markets. It is also assumed that the exporting countries which administer the MFA quotas...

International trade in apparel and textiles is regulated by a system of bilateral tariffs and quotas known as the Multifiber Arrangement or MFA. Using a time series of detailed product-level data from the United States on the quotas and tariffs that comprise the MFA, we analyze how the MFA...

Soon after beginning operations, the Federal Reserve established a nationwide network for collecting information about the economy. In 1919, the Fed began tabulating data by about retail sales, which it viewed as a fundamental measure of consumption. From 1920 until 1929, the Federal Reserve...

Each of the world's largest retailers---Walmart, Carrefour, Tesco, and Metro---entered China after 1995. Their subsequent expansion in China may have influenced Chinese exports through two channels. First, they may have enhanced bilateral exports between the retailers' Chinese operations and...