We extend Krugman's (1979) model of trade to multiple sectors or industries and show that, sector-by-sector, a bit of trade is worse than no trade at all. The reason is that the gains from the initiation of trade are second-order, while the welfare loss from the associated drop in varieties is...

This short paper extends the analysis of Morgan and Tumlinson (2018) to the setting of a small open economy. We show that in this economy featuring endogenous free entry of firms: (1) Both the number and production of firms is socially optimal. Furthermore production is efficient --- it...

Friedman (1970) suggests that firms ought not divert profits towards public goods since shareholders can better make these contributions themselves. Despite this, activist shareholders are increasingly successful in persuading firms to be "socially responsible." We study firm behavior when...

Why do individuals become entrepreneurs? Why do some succeed? We propose two theories in which information frictions play a central role in answering these questions. Empirical analysis of two national longitudinal samples reveal the following patterns: (i) entrepreneurs have higher ability than...