From 1997 to 2006, US state governors led more than 500 trade missions to foreign countries. Trade missions are potentially a form of public investment in export promotion. I create a theory of public investment by introducing government to a Melitz (2003)–Chaney (2008) model. Controlling for...

Forty U.S. states operated an overseas office in 2002. Treating overseas offices as sales offices, I modify Holmes (2005) so oces facilitate exports by reducing the transaction cost of selling abroad. From theory, states operate an office if aggregate savings outweigh operating costs. Exploiting...

Because of an endogeneity problem, estimating the impact of state export promotion programs on exports is difficult. The 2003 California budget crisis provides a natural experiment, circumventing this problem. Due to the crisis, California closed all 12 overseas oces on January 1, 2004. Applying...

From 1997-2006, U.S. state governors led more than ve hundred trade missions to foreign countries. Trade missions are potentially a form of public investment in export promotion. I create a theory of public investment by introducing government to a Melitz (2003)-Chaney (2008) trade model....