Recent research has emphasized firm heterogeneity as a source of comparative advantage. Combining this approach with labor market frictions and worker heterogeneity provides a framework for studying the impact of trade on unemployment and inequality. This paper reviews this approach and reports...

New developments in the world economy have triggered research designed to better understand the changes in trade and investment patterns, and the reorganization of production across national borders. Although traditional trade theory has much to offer in explaining parts of this puzzle, other...

During the last two decades, new research has greatly advanced our understanding of the structure of world trade. This article reviews the empirical literature that grew out of this effort, emphasizing the ways in which it relied on theoretical developments

Countries differ greatly in R&D spending, and these differences are particularly striking when comparing developed with developing countries. The paper examines the extent to which the benefits of R&D are concentrated in the investing countries. It is argued that significant benefits spill over...

First I describe a number of political economy approaches that have been developed to explain trade policies. All approaches are presented in a unified framework that helps to see the key differences among them. These comparisons revolve around tariff formulas that are predicted by political...

The debate between the North and the South about the enforcement of intellectual property rights in the South is examined within a dynamic general equilibrium framework in which the North innovates new products and the South imitates them. A welfare evaluation of a policy of tighter intellectual...

The paper focuses on the innovation-based approach to endogenous growth. It begins by spelling out conditions for sustained long-run growth in neoclassical economies and uses these conditions as a standard of comparison for the conditions required to sustain long-run growth in economies with...

Recent attempts to resolve the international debt crisis have lead some countries to engage in debt-equity swaps. The paper explores conditions under which such transactions are beneficial to the debtor as well as the creditors. It identifies a market failure that may prevent the emergence of...

In an economy with a debt overhang, investment depends on expected tax rates. On the other hand, expected tax rates depend on the debt's face value. Therefore investment depends on the face value of debt. I show that this may lead to a positive or negative association between debt and investment...

Recent developments in the theory of economic growth and dynamic trade theory are reviewed and interpreted. These include growth based on economies of scale, trade with product development, and product cycles. It is argued that there is need for more work in this area in order to understand the...