Economic integration of the African continent rests on two pillars: the ratification of an ambitious trade agreement and massive investment in transportation infrastructure. Leveraging a newly created city-level database on African exporters' transport times, transport route optimization and...

The unprecedented drop in international trade during the last quarter of 2008 and the first quarter of 2009 has mainly been analysed at the macroeconomic or sectoral level. However, exporters who are heterogeneous in terms of productivity, size or external financial dependence should be...

Global trade contracted quickly and severely during the global crisis. This paper, using a unique dataset of French firms, matching together export data with firm-level credit constraints, shows that most of the 2008-2009 trade collapse is accounted by the unprecedented demand shock and by...

This paper proposes studying export frequency of firms. While extensive margins of products and destination define the scope of firm's export, export shipment frequency is determined by sale method choice and cost structure of the trade technology. Exporters optimize the frequency of...