In this paper, we develop a multi-country open economy extension of the famous Big Push model for a closed economy by Murphy et al. (1989). We show under which conditions the global economy in our model is caught in a poverty trap, characterised by a low-income equilibrium from which an escape...

In their famous paper on the “Big Push”, Murphy, Shleifer, and Vishny (1989) show how the combination of increasing returns to scale at the firm level and pecuniary externalities can give rise to a poverty trap, thereby formalising an old idea due to Rosenstein-Rodan (1943). We develop in...

This paper analyzes trade in an asymmetric 2×2×2 world, where the two countries, labelled America and Europe, differ in their attitudes towards wage inequality. In both America and Europe, fair wage considerations compress differentials between the wages for skilled and unskilled workers,...

This paper analyzes trade in an asymmetric 2×2×2 world, where the two countries, labelled America and Europe, differ in their attitudes towards wage inequality. In both America and Europe, fair wage considerations compress differentials between the wages for skilled and unskilled workers,...

We show that in a Ricardo-Viner-type trade model with unemployment due to search and matching the productivity effect of offshoring emphasized by Grossman & Rossi-Hansberg (2008) emerges as a vehicle of job creation. Improvements in the technology of offshoring causes job losses at the extensive...

We show that in a Ricardo-Viner-type trade model with unemployment due to search and matching the productivity effect of offshoring emphasized by Grossman & Rossi-Hansberg (2008) emerges as a vehicle of job creation. Improvements in the technology of offshoring causes job losses at the extensive...

The policy debate views offshoring as job destruction. Theoretical models of offshoring mostly assume full employment. We develop a model of task trade that allows for equilibrium unemployment. In this model, there are two margins of adjustment. At the extensive margin, moving tasks offshore...