We compare samples of textiles and garments producers across groups of countries to find that, in general, productivity is far lower in Sub-Saharan Africa than it is in India. Indian manufacturers in turn are significantly less productive than their counterparts in Morocco, while producers in...

This paper reviews the empirical evidence on firm heterogeneity in international trade. A first wave of empirical findings from micro data on plants and firms proposed challenges for existing models of international trade and inspired the development of new theories emphasizing firm...

Empirical evidence suggests that trade liberalization increases firm productivity. This paper offers a novel explanation for this finding. I develop a simple general equilibrium model of trade in which trade liberalization leads to outsourcing as firms focus on their core competencies in...

We develop a model of international trade with two sources of firm heterogeneity: "productivity" and "caliber". Productivity is modeled as is standard in the literature. Caliber is the ability to produce quality using few fixed inputs. While there is no quality restriction to sell domestically,...

We develop a model of international trade with export quality requirements and two dimensions of rm heterogeneity. In addition to \productivity", rms are also heterogeneous in their \caliber" { the ability to produce quality using fewer xed inputs. Compared to single-attribute models of rm...

This paper will assess the importance of internal firm resources in overcoming sunk entry costs associated with export. When firms are not able to raise additional external funds for investments, they are credit-constrained, and in such a case, new exporters have to rely on their internal...

We develop a model of international trade with export quality requirements and two dimensions of firm heterogeneity. In addition to "productivity", firms are also heterogeneous in their "caliber" {the ability to produce quality using fewer fixed inputs. Compared to singleattribute models of firm...

Empirical evidence suggests that trade liberalization increases firm productivity. This paper offers a novel explanation for this finding. I develop a simple general equilibrium model of trade in which trade liberalization leads to outsourcing as firms focus on their core competencies in...

Recent theoretical research shows that exporters are more productive than nonexporters. We show that this result holds almost trivially for the case of constant marginal cost of production, as mainly assumed in the literature, but it may not hold true if the marginal cost is not constant. Our...

Is the variation in bilateral trade flows across countries primarily due to differences in the number of exporting firms (the extensive margin) or in the average size of an exporter (the intensive margin)? And how does this affect the estimation and quantitative implications of the Melitz (2003)...