China has witnessed rapid increases in the skill premium over the last few decades. In this paper, we study the short-run effect of capital goods imports on skill premium in China. The surge in capital goods imports, which embody advanced technology, can explain the rising demand for skills in...

Seminal theories of the firm posit that firm ownership is allocated to minimize contractual inefficiencies. Yet, it remains unclear how much the optimal ownership choice affects firm performance in practice. This paper provides a first quantification of the gains from optimal ownership within...

China has defied the declining trend in domestic content in exports in many countries. We study China’s rising domestic content in exports using firm- and customs transaction-level data. Our approach embraces firm heterogeneity and hence reduces aggregation bias. We find that the substitution...

The past decades witnessed big changes in international trade with the rise of global value chains. Some countries, such as China, Poland, and Vietnam rode the tide, while other countries, many in the Africa region, faltered. This paper studies the determinants of participation in global value...