This paper discusses how information and communication technology (ICT) affects the quality and reach of consumer services. These services need to be provided locally, but consist of several components, some of which can be digitised and transmitted over long distances. A general equilibrium...

This volume was prepared by Sebastian Benz while he was working at the Ifo Institute. It was completed in December 2013 and accepted as a doctoral thesis by the Department of Economics at the University of Munich. It includes five self-contained chapters. All chapters discuss different...

We introduce unemployment and endogenous selection of workers into different skill-classes in a trade model with two sectors and heterogeneous firms. This allows us to study the distributional consequences and the skill-specific unemployment effects of trade liberalization. We show that the...

We introduce unemployment and endogenous selection of workers into different skill-classes in a trade model with two sectors and heterogeneous firms. This allows us to study the distributional consequences and the skill-specific unemployment effects of trade liberalization. We show that the...

We develop a dynamic general equilibrium trade model with comparative advantage, heterogeneous firms, heterogeneous workers and endogenous firm entry to study wage inequality during the adjustment after trade liberalization. We find that trade liberalization increases wage inequality both in the...

We develop a dynamic general equilibrium trade model with comparative advantage, heterogeneous firms, heterogeneous workers and endogenous firm entry to study wage inequality during the adjustment after trade liberalization. We find that trade liberalization increases wage inequality both in the...

We revisit Grossman and Rossi-Hansberg's (2008) famous result, that under certain conditions offshoring of low-skilled labor tasks raises the domestic wage for low-skilled workers. Our re-examination features a less benign environment where Rybczynski-type reallocation of factors to absorb...

We use a dynamic general equilibrium trade model with comparative advantage, heterogeneous firms, heterogeneous workers and endogenous firm entry to analyze economic policy to compensate the losers of trade liberalization and to reduce the ensuing wage inequality. We consider several instruments...

This paper investigates how trade openness affects wage inequality of trading countries, both within and between them. Specifically, based on the theoretical literature on monopolistic competition between two asymmetric countries, we derive a new framework under the assumption of endogenous...

We use a dynamic general equilibrium trade model with comparative advantage, heterogeneous firms, heterogeneous workers and endogenous firm entry to analyze economic policy meant to compensate the losers of trade liberalization and reduce the ensuing wage inequality. We consider several...