The international economic development over the last century was characterised by various kinds of cycles. This article focusses on cyclical changes in the net barter terms of trade between primary products and manufactured goods. By comparing and contrasting the present circumstances with those...

In this paper we examine whether a generalized version of Flam and Helpman's (1987) model of vertical differentiation can reconcile three facts. One, countries import only a subset of available varieties. Two, import prices vary across exporters within narrow product categories. Three, US growth...