This paper develops a general equilibrium model of international trade in homogeneous intermediate inputs. In the model, trade between countries is driven exclusively by uncertainty in the delivery of inputs. Because their managers are risk-averse, final good firms contract with multiple...

Relationships between firms and their foreign suppliers are the foundation of international trade, but data limitations and reliability concerns make studying such relationships challenging. We evaluate and enhance supplier information in U.S. import data and present new facts about...

The importance of services trade and "servicification" of economic activity has grown in countries overtime. However, regulatory and administrative barriers to the movement of service suppliers have meant that "Mode 4" accounted for only 2.1% of total services trade in 2005 and 2.9% in 2017....

International trade has become increasingly dependent on the transmission of complex information, often realized via face-to-face communication. This paper provides novel evidence for the importance of in-person business meetings in international trade. Interactions among trade partners entail a...

Fragmentation of production into more and more complex supply chains is a prominent feature of globalisation. It implies that transaction costs as part of total costs of ownership carry a large weight in procurement decisions. An analysis of the various types of transaction costs is also...