This paper investigates the effects of mergers on the product mix of multiproduct firms. Thus, we open the black box of post-merger efficiency improvements to reveal a new margin of adjustment along the product dimension. We analyze horizontal mergers in a theoretical model where oligopolistic...

Starting with Krugman (1980), much literature has analyzed how trade liberalization affects the economy based on the notion that trade is motivated by consumer's love of variety. In this paper, I augment these preferences by the determinants of demand for heterogeneous products. The model...

This paper starts by showing that in the European car industry, there exist cross-country taste differences along the product attribute dimension that significantly drive net trade patterns and reduce the volume of trade. Further it is shown that, after the creation of the European common...

Import competition from China is pervasive in the sense that for many good categories, the competitive environment that US firms face in these markets is strongly driven by the prices of Chinese imports, and so is their pricing decision. This paper quantifies the effect of the...

This paper studies the effects of integration on capital taxation in a number of OECD countries. Unlike most previous papers on the subject, we combine key features from the new economic geography theory with the standard tax competition framework. We consider effective as well as statutory...

Adding majority voting to a simple new economic geography model, we analyse under which circumstances politically determined barriers to international firm relocation exist. Two countries, differing in market size, consider abolishing restrictions on firm mobility. Eliminating these restrictions...

This paper analyses the political determination of transportation costs in a new economic geography model. In a benchmark case with certainty about where agglomeration takes place, a majority of voters favour economic integration and the resulting equilibrium is an industrialised core and a...

We empirically analyze the impact of corporate tax rates and agglomeration economies on FDI using panel data on bilateral FDI flows and stocks in the enlarged European Union. The novelty of the paper is that it explicitly deals with agglomeration forces and how these may explain differences in...

This paper uses panel data on bilateral FDI flows in the European Union to empirically analyze the impact of labor and corporate taxations on FDI decisions. While the effect of corporate taxes on FDI is well documented, the impact of labor taxes on FDI has been neglected. This is surprising...

How does intranational factor mobility shape the welfare effects of a trade shock? I provide evidence that during WWI, a demand shock emanated from belligerent countries and affected neutral Spain. Within Spain, labor predominantly reallocated locally, while the most affected provinces...