Whether countries gain comparative advantage from low labor standards, such as child labor use, is an important empirical issue in trade policy. The first essay in this dissertation addresses this question by estimating the effect of child labor stocks on specialization patterns in a...

Chapter 1 of this thesis revisits Reimer (2006), and Trefler and Zhu (2005, 2006) (RTZ) tests of the Vanek proposition in the presence of international differences in production techniques and global production sharing. In this framework, knowing the bilateral details of each country's...

This thesis consists of two essays that explore the importance of information transfers in international trade and the effectiveness of policy measures designed to improve connectivity across export markets. The first essay provides theory and evidence for the role of information as an input to...

Chapter 1 of this thesis examines in theory and empirics how exporters use different modes of transportation to hedge price uncertainty. Ocean transportation in international trade imposes a time lag between the departure and arrival of a shipment. This arrival lag creates a problem for firms...

Purchasing goods from distant locations introduces a significant lag between when a product is shipped and when it arrives. These transit lags are trade barriers for firms facing volatile demand, who must place orders before knowing the resolution of demand uncertainty. We provide a model in...

The first essay develops and tests a monopolistic competition model with a more general, but still tractable, CES preference structure that nests Krugman (1980) and Armington (1969) style models. With limited love of variety the consumer faces a trade-off between buying more varieties or higher...

International trade occurs in physical space and moving goods requires time. This paper examines the importance of time as a trade barrier, estimates the magnitude of time costs, and relates these to patterns of trade and the international organization of production. Estimates indicate that each...

With the proliferation of Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) over the past decade, demand for quantitative analysis of their likely impacts has surged. The main quantitative tool for performing such analysis is Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) modeling. Yet these models have been widely criticized...

This study investigates the effects of the transportation cost on the international trade. The first essay explores the effect of the transportation cost on the quality composition of trade. We derive a relationship between per unit and ad-valorem trade costs and the quality composition of trade...

Essay one examines whether a generalized version of Flam and Helpman's (1987) model of vertical differentiation can reconcile three facts. One, countries import only a subset of available varieties. Two, import prices vary across exporters within narrow product categories. Three, US growth in...