We analyze the economic forces underlying cross-border Mergers and Acquistions (M&As) using a large bilateral panel data set. The frequent occurrence of zero observations provides essential information on the structure of M&A flows, which we model empirically using a two-stage procedure. At the...

Most FDI takes place between the developed countries, which suggests that the market-seeking motive is important for understanding FDI. However, given the stylized fact that trade barriers (e.g. transportation costs and financial barriers) have declined over the past 20 years, models that aim to...

Empirically, Trefler (1995) shows that actual trade flows deviate from predictions based on factor abundance theory in a systematic way (which he calls the 'case of the missing trade'). Theoretically, Courant and Deardorff (1992) show that an uneven distribution of factors of production across...

We analyze the impact of obsolescence of economic inventions by incorporating maintenance costsin the endogenous growth model of expanding product varieties. This contrasts with the existingliterature, which ignores maintenance costs and uses the model of quality improvements todescribe...

Using a comprehensive international trade data set we investigate empirical regularities (known as Zipf’s Law or the rank-size rule) for the distribution of the interaction between countries as measured by revealed comparative advantage. Using the recently developed estimator by Gabaix and...

Geographical economics analyzes the endogenous determination of the location of economic activity in a general equilibrium framework. We investigate the impact of pollution by focusing on the interaction between location advantages and negative pollution externalities associated with local...

The information contained in PP-plots is transformed into a single number. The resulting Harmonic Mass (HM) index is distribution free and its sample counterpart is shown to be consistent. For a wide class of CDFs the exact analytical expression of the distribution of the sample HM index is...

This four-chapter overview of basic exchange rate theories discusses (i) the elasticity and absorption approach, (ii) the (long-run) implications of the monetary approach, (iii) the short-run effects of monetary and fiscal policy under various economic conditions, and (iv) the transition from...

We analyze the dynamics of Chinese comparative advantage as measured by export shares and the Balassa index using 3-digit and 4-digit sectors for the period 1970 – 1997. We use novel tools to identify periods of rapid structural change and the persistence of comparative advantage, such as...

We derive and discuss a general, but simple geographical economics model with congestion, allowing us to explain the economic viability of small and large locations. The model generalizes some previous work and lends itself to analyzing the impact of public policy in terms of infrastructure...