Firm-level idiosyncratic policy distortions misallocate resources between firms, lowering aggregate productivity. Many environmental policies create such distortions; in particular, output-based intensity standards (which limit firms' energy use or emissions per unit of output) are easier for...

Firm-level idiosyncratic policy distortions lower aggregate productivity, especially if such distortions are correlated with firm productivity. Many environmental policies, such as energy intensity standards, exhibit this correlation. In contrast to the existing environmental literature...

International trade increases productivity; internal trade should too. The size and consequences of internal trade barriers are unfortunately not well known. Using unique Canadian data and multiple approaches to measure trade costs, we find internal trade barriers are large, especially for poor...

Like trade between countries, trade within countries is costly; unlike between countries, gains from trade within countries depend on migration and taxes, as gains through higher wages have tax consequences that gains through lower prices do not. We confirm the first point and flexibly measure...

International trade and the internal movement of goods and people are closely related. China – increasingly open and with massive internal migration flows – provides an ideal setting to study these interrelationships. We develop a general equilibrium model of internal and external...

Online appendix for the Review of Economic Dynamics article