The Theory of the Second Best implies that any country with less-than-ideal resources can lose from international trade. Recently it has been suggested this means the South (poor countries) are better off suppressing trade with the North, especially trade in natural resource products, since the...

We analyze investment behavior of the population of medium and large industrial firms located in the Czech Republic in 1992-95. We examine the relevance of alternative models of investment and test if investment behavior varies across ownership-legal form categories of firms. By using a large...

The impact of FDI on total factor productivity in Hungary during the 1990s' is assessed with a large enterprise panel. Foreign equity is associated with higher productivity levels and has a substantial, positive spillover effect on aggregate TFP growth. However, this benefit is significant only...

Economists have used cross-national regression analysis to argue that postcommunist economic failure is the result of inadequate adherence liberal economic policies. Sociologists have relied on case study data to show that postcommunist economic failure is the outcome of too close adherence to...

We study Pareto improvements whose implementation requires knowledge of only market prices and traded quantities, not utility and demand functions. Quantity stabilizations (for example, the Lau, Qian, and Roland model of dual-track reform) give agents the right to repeat their earlier trades and...

This dissertation studies the roles of comparative advantage, monopolistic competition, and firm-level heterogeneity in international trade.The first essay investigates cross-country and cross-industry variation in the fractions of exporters among domestic firms. The paper presents a model of an...

This dissertation studies the roles that durable goods play in open economy macroeconomics. The three essays examine if and how durable goods improve the ability to understand business cycle features.The first essay shows how investment behavior and international risk sharing, two business cycle...

The practice of international trade has evolved from the purchase of final goods of foreign origin to production sharing, now commonly referred to as offshore outsourcing. Due to the nature of direct replacement of domestic tasks with foreign ones, the discussions about offshore outsourcing tend...

"Starting about the late 1960s there have been increasing fears that economic growth would soon lead to the exhaustion of raw materials and, food supplies, or environmental damage of one kind or another. These fears have been accompanied by widespread appeal to the concept of sustainable...