The Melitz model highlights the importance of the extensive margin (the number of firms exporting) for trade flows. Using the World Bank’s Exporter Dynamics Database (EDD) featuring firm-level exports from 50 countries, we find that around 50% of variation in exports is along the extensive...

By means of a very simple example, this note illustrates the appeal of using Bayesian rather than classical methods to produce inference on hidden states in models of Markovian regime switching. -- Bayesian analysis ; switching regression ; regime changes ; nonlinear filtering