Firms need to incur substantial sunk costs to break in foreign markets, yet many give up exporting shortly after their first experience, which typically involves very small sales. Conversely, other new exporters shoot up their foreign sales and expand to new destinations. We investigate a simple...

This paper evaluates the learning impact of different teacher training methods using a random controlled trial implemented in 70 state schools in Buenos Aires, Argentina. A control group receiving standard teacher training was compared with two alternative treatment arms: providing a structured...

We present a theory of endogenous political regimes that emphasizes overseas investments and that foreign governments may either induce regime transitions or promote regime consolidations. In our theory, foreign intervention is driven by the interaction between strategic foreign investments and...

This paper evaluates the learning impact of different teacher training methods using a randomized controlled trial implemented in 70 state schools in Buenos Aires, Argentina. A control group receiving standard teacher training was compared with two alternative treatment arms: providing a...

This paper studies a model of announcements by a privately informed government about the future state of the economic activity in an economy subject to recurrent shocks and with distortions due to income taxation. Although transparent communication would ex ante be desirable, we find that even a...

Thus, it is the possibility of profitable expansion at both the intensive and extensive margins what makes incurring the sunk costs to enter a single foreign market worthwhile despite the high failure rates. Using a census of Argentinean firm-level manufacturing exports from 2002 to 2007, we...

We study how foreign interventions affect civil war around the world. In an infinitely repeated game we combine a gambling for resurrection mechanism for the influencing country with the canonical bargaining model of war in the influenced country to micro-found sudden shifts in power among the...

There is an extensive literature that examines the relationship between foreign direct investment (FDI) and the productivity and competitiveness of domestic firms. Using estimation techniques from the productivity spillover literature, this paper tests for the presence of environmental...

Regional integration makes relocation a more attractive option for Multinational Corporations (MNC), influencing in turn the provision of investment incentives by member countries. We examine in this context the effects of subsidy competition. To do so, we model the strategic interaction between...

We study the incentives to expropriate foreign capital under democracy and obligarchy. We model a two-sector small open economy where foreign investment triggers Stolper-Samuelson effects through reducing exporting costs. We show how incentives to expropriate depend on the distributional effects...