This paper analyzes U.S. experience with foreign lending in the half-century from 1920. A first question raised by this experience is what ignited the process of U.S. foreign lending. I conclude that lending was restrained at the beginning of the period by the debt overhang associated with...

This study explores the interaction between trade and geography in shaping the Islamic economic doctrine. We build a model where an unequal distribution of land quality in presence of trade opportunities conferred differential gains from trade across regions, fostering predatory behavior by...

This paper shows that ethnically remote locations do not reap the full peace dividend from increased market access. Exploiting the staggered implementation of the US-initiated Africa Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) and using high-resolution data on ethnic composition and violent conflict for...

This paper reviews the main developments in U.S. trade and the balance of payments from the first years of the 19th century to the first decade of the 20th. American export trade was dominated by agricultural and other resource products long after the majority of the labor force had shifted out...

We review the literature on the empirical characteristics of the global financial cycle and associated stylized facts on international capital flows, asset prices, risk aversion and liquidity in the financial system. We analyse the co-movements of global factors in asset prices and capital flows...

How much do consumption patterns matter for the impact of international trade on inequality? In neoclassical trade models, the effects of trade shocks on consumers' purchasing power are governed by the shares of imports in consumer expenditures, under no parametric assumptions on preferences and...

This chapter investigates the non-market response of firms to international trade shocks increasing the level of competition in U.S. industries. Lobbying expenditures increase as a consequence of import changes related to the China shock. The effect on lobbying is not homogeneous across firms...

We study the growth of Chinese imports into the United States from autarky during 1950-1970 to about 15 percent of overall imports in 2008, taking advantage of the rich heterogeneity in trade policy and trade growth across products during this period. Central to our analysis is an accounting for...

This paper develops a model in which upstream network insiders' conduct relationship specific investment that induces the downstream firm to transact within networks. The scale of destination-country production and part-specific measures of the importance of network relationships and engineering...