The fragmentation of production across borders allows firms to make and export final goods, or to perform only intermediate stages of production by processing imported inputs for re-exporting. We examine how financial frictions affect companies’ choice between processing and ordinary trade -...

In this paper, we examine an innovative postal export regime that involves both a streamlining of export procedures and provision of intermediation services to investigate how firms' react to changing trade costs and whether and how these firms learn. In so doing, we use a unique dataset that...

India and Pakistan are the leading textile trading nations in the world. Among the major sectors, the textile and clothing sector accounts for the largest share in trade between India and Pakistan chiefly because of the similarities in culture and the importance of the sector in their economies....

This paper proposes a unique overview of trade policies trends since the launch of the Doha Round, based on detailed data on tariffs and trade covering 130 countries. We show that regionalism has delivered limited effective liberalization so far, leading to only a 0.3 percentage point (p.p.) cut...

Do tariffs inhibit trade flows by limiting the entry of exporting firms ('extensive margin') or by restricting the average volume exported by each firm ('intensive margin')? Using a gravity equation approach, we analyze how the decrease in tariffs promoted during the 1990s by the Uruguay Round...

This paper uses the methodology developed in Kehoe and Ruhl (2013) to measure the change in the extensive, or new goods, margin of trade between Japan and China after China's entry into the World Trade Organization in 2001. The new goods account for 15.9% of Japanese exports to China and 22% of...

Governments and businesses worldwide are preparing for a carbon-constrained future and evaluating different policy instruments to combat climate change. Agricultural production is an important source of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and practices that reduce or offset these emissions can...

This paper estimates the effects of trade liberalization on plant productivity. In contrast to previous studies, we distinguish between productivity gains arising from lower tariffs on final goods relative to lower tariffs on intermediate inputs. Lower output tariffs can produce productivity...

We build on the latest developments in the structural gravity literature to quantify the partial and general equilibrium effects of GATT/WTO membership on trade and welfare. Using an extensive database covering manufacturing trade for 186 countries over the period 1980-2016, we find that the...