This paper studies the link between a firms education level, export performance and wages of its workers. We argue that firms may escape intence competition in international markets by using high skilled workers to differentiate their products. This story is consistent with our empirical...

This paper investigates empirically the effect of import diversity on government size and provides evidence for the love of variety effect on government spending described in Hanslin (2008). I argue that crowding out of firms is an important cost of public good provision. However, due to the...

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

There exists a growing body of literature which looks at export decisions made by firms. Most studies focus on developed countries and do not explore whether different behavioral patterns prevail over the firm size distribution. This paper aims at filling this gap in the literature by analyzing...

While many studies explain the correlation between firm-level productivity and export status entirely by better firms self-selecting into exporting, a few studies find evidence of reverse causation. Especially in developing or transition economies, exporters seem to improve performance after...

Assessing the trade impacts of domestic transport costs is data demanding and analyses that examine the effects of road quality, a critical aspect in regional and public policy, practically do not exist in the international trade literature. The few studies available rely mostly on distancebased...

Our knowledge of the trade effects of domestic infrastructure is very limited. The reason is twofold. First, data needed to examine these effects are not readily available. Second, identifying such effects requires properly addressing potential endogeneity problems affecting the relationship...

This paper shows that bank linkages have a positive effect on international trade. A global banking network (GBN) is constructed at the bank level, using individual syndicated loan data from Loan Analytics for 1990-2007. Network distance between bank pairs is computed and aggregated to country...

Este documento analiza los grandes cambios en las principales áreas de política económica estructural en América Latina entre 1985 y 2009 y presenta un conjunto de índices que intentan medir qué tan favorables son para el libre funcionamiento de los mercados las políticas comercial,...

China is appraised to have the world's largest exploitable reserves of shale gas, although several legal, regulatory, environmental and investment-related issues will likely restrain its scope. China's capacity to successfully face these hurdles and produce commercial shale gas will have a...