The paper provides a general-equilibrium model where incomplete international financial markets lead to insufficient industrial specialization and low international trade. As international portfolio diversification is limited and productivity is uncertain, investors wish to maintain a...

The paper investigates whether deviations from the law of one price can attributed to real factors, such as transportation and distribution costs. Even if trade is costly, the prices of a good at di.erent locations will be linked as long as the good is traded. Instead of the usual iceberg...

Why is GDP so much more volatile in poor countries than in rich ones? To answer this question, we propose a theory of technological diversification. Production makes use of different input varieties, which are subject to imperfectly correlated shocks. As in endogenous growth models,...

Good management practices are important determinants of firm success. It is unclear, however, to what extent pro-management policies can shape aggregate outcomes. We use data on corporations and their top managers in Hungary during and after its post-communist transition to document a number of...

We estimate the effect of imported machines on the wages of machine operators utilizing Hungarian linked employer-employee data. We infer exposure to imported machines from detailed trade statistics of the firm and the occupation description of the worker. We find that workers exposed to...

The theory of geographical markets is based on the notion that economic activity is not evenly spread and regional inequalities have an impact on the decisions of economic agents. Retail gasoline markets are almost perfect examples of geographical markets. The gasoline sold by the stations is a...

Why is GDP so much more volatile in poor countries than in rich ones? To answer this question, we propose a theory of technological diversification. Production makes use of different input varieties, which are subject to imperfectly correlated shocks. As in endogenous growth models,...