This Paper builds a multi-country, multi-sector general equilibrium model that explains the decision of heterogeneous firms to serve foreign markets either through exports or local subsidiary sales (FDI). These modes of market access involve different relative costs, some of which are sunk while...

The paper provides a comparative history of the economic impact of the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. By focussing on the relative price evidence, it is possible to show that the conflict had major economic effects around the world. Britain's control of the seas meant that it was much less...

Firms are more productive on average in larger cities. Two explanations have been offered: agglomeration economies (larger cities promote interactions that increase productivity) and firm selection (larger cities toughen competition allowing only the most productive to survive). To distinguish...

This Paper uses NUTS3 sub-regional data for Great Britain to analyse the determinants of spatial variations in income and productivity. We decompose the spatial variation of earnings into a productivity effect and an occupational composition effect. For the former (but not the latter) we find a...

While there is considerable empirical evidence on the impact of liberalizing trade in goods, the effects of services liberalization have not been empirically established. This study examines the link between services sector reforms and the productivity of manufacturing industries relying on...

Globalization is not only about the rise of trade, FDI, and migration. It is also about the changing linkages among these flows. The main findings of this Paper can be summarized as follows. First, at least in the 1990s, import trade liberalization fostered not only trade but also inward...

Several recent papers have argued that trade and financial development may be linked, either for political economy reasons, or because foreign competition and exposure to shocks lead to changes in the demand for external finance. In this paper we use the cross-country and time-series variation...

Economic development implies that the efficiency of firms in developing countries is approaching that of firms in advanced economies. We examine the extent of this convergence in the Czech Republic and Russia, economies that represent alternative models of implementing development policies,...

In this Paper, we show that with international externalities, different country sizes, imperfect competition and trade costs, tax competition for mobile firms is efficiency enhancing with respect to the free market outcome. Nonetheless, while the latter entails too many firms in the larger...

This Discussion Paper analyses 23 industrial sector in a sample of 51 developed and developing countries. It distinguishes the contribution of five factors: private capital, infrastructure, education, trade integration, and net efficiency. Several relatively small handicaps, combined...