According to the Washington Consensus, developing countries’ growth would benefit from reductions in barriers to trade. However, the empirical basis for judging trade reforms is weak. Econometrics are mostly ad hoc; results are typically not judged against models; policies are poorly measured;...

We consider two channels via which foreign inputs into industrial production may lead to productivity effects. The first one concerns dynamic externalities between firms which share technical and organizational knowledge which is vital for the productivity growth of a particular industry. We...

This paper discusses the issue whether developing countries forego chances in world manufactured markets by protecting intermediate services against market entry of new suppliers. By scanning the empirical literature on effective rates of protection (ERP), the evidence is supportive. Yet, it...

The rise in income inequality in developing countries after trade liberalization has been a puzzle for trade theory, which predicts the opposite effect. The authors present a model with imported intermediate goods in which the relative wages of skilled labor can rise due to higher imports of...

Governments in more developed economies partially compensate import-competing industries when world prices fall, i.e. they lean against the wind. In less developed economies we often observe liberalization in response to the same shock. We use a political-support maximization model with revenue...