What do state-owned enterprises (SOEs) do? How do they respond to market incentives? Can we expect substantial efficiency gains from trade liberalization in economies with a strong presence of SOEs? Using a new dataset of Vietnamese firms we document a set of empirical regularities...

The EU-South Korea FTA, enforced in 2011, represents a significant case of a trade deal signed between two major developed economies that also belong among the largest car exporters in the world. This paper examines the effects of the EU-South Korea FTA on bilateral automotive industry trade,...

This paper discusses Mexico’s foreign trade and investment policies and provides specific recommendations to enhance the benefits of a closer integration in the world economy. Over the past two decades, Mexico has made significant progress in reducing barriers to trade and foreign direct...

Exchange rate volatility has been identified as one of the drivers of export diversification. Previous studies have assumed a symmetric relationship between the two variables. However, because volatility could be positive or negative and economic agents react to these changes differently, recent...

On the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the WTO, this paper re-estimates the impact of WTO accession on growth. Joining the multilateral trading system not only expands access to international markets but also requires commitment to domestic reforms. Tang and Wei (2009) showed that there is...

According to conventional wisdom, multinational firms undertake vertical FDI in order to take advantage of cross-border factor cost differences and source the inputs from abroad at better terms. Recent empirical findings though document that this is not always the case. We provide theoretical...

This paper highlights the crucial role played by international access to intermediate inputs to explain firm-level performance, via two channels simultaneously: trade and FDI. We develop a simple theoretical model showing that trade integration of input market entails an efficiency improvement...

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 of...

We investigate the long-term effects of export opportunities to a large destination market on multinational affiliates and domestic firms in a low-income host country. The US-Vietnam Bilateral Trade Agreement reduced US import tariffs on exports from Vietnam. Tariff reductions led to entry...

This paper investigates the extent to which foreign direct investment (FDI) influenced intra-industry trade (IIT) in automotive products in six New EU Member States (the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia) in the 1995-2014 period. Changes in IIT intensity are...