The theoretical result that there are welfare gains from trade is a central tenet of international economics. In a class of trade models that satisfy a "gravity equation," the welfare gains from trade can be computed using only the open economy domestic trade share and the elasticity of trade...

Does the offshoring of production degrade or enhance the innovative capabilities of manufacturing firms? We contribute to this debate by exploiting a policy shock that differentially affected the ability of Taiwanese firms to offshore some products to China. We find causal evidence that...

When considering the incentive of a monopolist to adopt an innovation, the textbook model assumes that it can instantaneously and seamlessly introduce the new technology. In fact, firms often face major problems in integrating new technologies. In some cases, firms have to (temporarily) produce...

The number of different car and light truck models produced in North America has increased enormously over the last decades. The data suggests that producing this increased variety of vehicles is associated with a productivity penalty. We show that manufacturers can adopt complementary...

The trade linked to international production networks - supply-chain trade for short - is associated with momentous global economic changes. This paper presents a portrait of the global pattern of supply-chain trade and how it has evolved since 1995. The paper draws on a variety of data sources...

The fragmentation of production across borders allows firms to make and export final goods, or to perform only intermediate stages of production by processing imported inputs for re-exporting. We examine how financial frictions affect companies' choice between processing and ordinary trade -...

We use daily administrative data from a leading automobile manufacturer to study the organizational impacts of introducing new models to the auto assembly line. We first show that costly defects per vehicle spike when new models are introduced. As a response, the firm trains in problem-solving...

In this paper we theoretically and empirically model import demand and export supply behavior of firms for the U.S. economy from 1967-1982. A producer theoretic approach based on duality theory is used to derive econometric systems of producer supply and demand functions that are consistent with...

Empirical evidence has long shown that output varies more in the short-run than do all factor inputs, including employment and hours worked. There is also evidence that all factors, including capital, start adjusting within a few months, suggesting that production models should treat all...

If stock-outs are ignored and if demand shocks are additive, then optimal behavior requires that the marginal cost of production (MC) be equated with the expected marginal revenue of increasing expected sales by one unit (EMR). However,with more general demand shocks (and still ignoring...