For more than forty years, the gravity equation has been a workhorse for cross-country empirical analyses of international trade flows and, in particular, the effects of free trade agreements (FTAs) on trade flows. However, the gravity equation is subject to the same econometric critique as...

This paper investigates empirically how similarity of demand structures - approximated by similarity of income distributions - affects trade patterns along both the extensive and intensive margin. The idea that similarity of demand structures intensifies trade goes back to the well-known Linder...

The comparison of the key features of trade integration processes and the economic outcomes in China and India reveals that while much has already been achieved in both these economies, the Chinese reforms, especially with respect to manufacturing trade, have gone further and that this is likely...

We work with a panel of bilateral trade flows from 1988 to 2002, exploring the influence of infrastructure, institutional quality, colonial and geographic context, and trade preferences on the pattern of bilateral trade. We are interested in threshold effects, and so emphasize those cases where...

Building on a framework introduced by Chaney and Ossa (2013), we construct a task-based model of the firm's choice of occupational inputs to examine how that choice varies with greater global engagement. We depart from Chaney and Ossa by assuming that more complex tasks are more costly to...

Globalization affects the mix of jobs available in an economy and the rate at which workers gain skills. We develop a model in which firms differ in terms of productivity and workers differ in skills, and use the model to examine how globalization affects the wage distribution and the career...

This research examines the economic origins and spread of Islam in the Old World and uncovers two empirical regularities. First, Muslim countries and ethnic groups exhibit highly unequal regional agricultural endowments. Second, Muslim adherence is systematically higher along the pre-Islamic...

This paper investigates the spread of what started as a crisis at the core of the global financial system to emerging economies. While emerging economies had exhibited some resilience through the early stages of the financial turmoil that began in the summer of 2007, they have been hit hard...

International fragmentation, or outsourcing, is often referred to as a distinctly novel feature in today's global economy. First observed in the US-Mexican context, the phenomenon is increasingly catching policy makers' attention also in Europe. As barriers between east and west are...