This paper explores the role of country asymmetries for trade and industrial policies withheterogeneous firms. Our analysis delivers a number of novel results. First, trade policies,infrastructure policies and industrial policies which improve the business conditions in onecountry have negative...

This paper uses an oligopoly model with heterogeneous firms to examine how an industryadjusts to rising import competition. The model predicts that in the short run the least efficientfirms in the industry become inactive, surviving firms face a fall in output, mark-ups andprofits, and the...

The robust empirical finding that exporting firms are systematically different from firms thatmerely serve domestic consumers has inspired the development of a new brand of tradetheory, the theory of heterogeneous firms and trade. The establishment of a canonical modeldue to Melitz (2003) has...

We introduce search unemployment à la Pissarides into Melitz’ (2003) model of trade with heterogeneous firms. We allow wages to be individually or collectively bargained and analytically solve for the equilibrium. We find that the selection effect of trade influences labor market outcomes....

The interaction between trade liberalisation, product and process innovation, and relative skill demand is analysed in a model of international oligopoly. Lower trading barriers increase the degree of foreign competition. The competing enterprises respond by investing more aggressively in...

We investigate the impact of changes in international trade and domestic transport costs on the internalgeography of a domestic economy linked to the rest of the World through a hub. We address that issue bydeveloping two three regions model, namely a version of the Footlose Entrepreneur and a...

In this paper we build a quality-augmented version of an economic geography model whereconsumers have heterogenous tastes for a set of manufacturing varieties. We discuss afootloose capital model and a footloose entrepreneur model. We show that firms selling thegoods with higher values select...

We develop a model with two asymmetric countries. Firms choose the number andthe location of plants that they operate. The production of each firm increases whentrade costs fall. The fall also induces multinationals to repatriate their production intoa single country, which is likely to be the...

We present a gravity model that accounts for multilateral resistance, firm heterogeneity and country-selectioninto trade, while accommodating asymmetries in trade flows. A new equation for the proportion of exporting…firms takes a gravity form: the extensive margin is also accected by...

This paper analyses trade specialisation dynamics in two Eastern European countries(Romania and Bulgaria – EEC-2) vis-à-vis the core EU member states (EU-15) over theperiod 1990-2006. Specifically, we focus on whether there is a shift towards intra-industrytrade leading to economic...