In the last decade, a large portion of capital goods imports of Sub-Saharan African countries is telecommunications equipment, and China is now the main source of equipment for 30 Sub-Saharan African countries. A connection between specific types of equipment imports and subsequent exports is...

We investigate theoretically and empirically how exporters adjust their markups across destinations depending on bilateral distance, tariffs, and the quality of their exports. Under the assumption that trade costs are both ad valorem and per unit, our model predicts that markups rise with...

With the deepening of global specialization division of labor, China should shift from attaching importance to the scale of exports to attaching importance to the upgrading of export product quality. A reasonable and orderly polycentric network breaks the market barriers between regions and...

This paper examines the impact of capital imports on firms’ export quality upgrading with a subsidy policy for advanced capital imports implemented in China since 2008. Using a matched dataset of firms’ production and custom databases, we employ a DiD strategy that exploits firms’...

This paper studies the effect of firm and country reputation on exports when buyers cannot observe quality prior to purchase. Firm-level demand is determined by expected quality, which is driven by the dynamics of consumer learning through experience and the country of origin's reputation for...

This paper studies the effect of firm and country reputation on exports when buyers cannot observe quality prior to purchase. Firm-level demand is determined by expected quality, which is driven by the dynamics of consumer learning through experience and the country of origin's reputation for...

This paper studies whether credit constraints affect the decision of small and medium size enterprises (SMEs) to upgrade the quality of their exported output with respect to the one sold domestically. We use a detailed firm-level data-set on Italian SMEs reporting information on output...

This paper provides first firm-level evidence of the links between income inequality and the patterns of trade and export prices. We identify a theoretical mechanism behind these links, which suggests that a more unequal income distribution leads to higher average prices. We test the theory...

This paper introduces quality innovations with endogenous sunk costs in a heterogeneous firm model of international trade and derives implications for the gravity equation. The model predicts that the effect of fixed costs on exports and on the share of exporters is lower in industries with a...

This paper explores firms' export dynamics in emerging economies where local firms face stiff foreign competition, both at home and abroad, and thus compelled to choose the level of quality in which to export. We develop and test a model of vertical product differentiation where the link between...