There has been much discussion about what issues should be included in international 'trade' negotiations. Different countries, firms, and activist groups have quite different views regarding which items should (or should not) be negotiated together. Proposals run the gamut from no linking to...

The comparative advantage of many cities is based on their efficiency in the production of ‘functions’, e.g., business services such as finance, law, engineering, or similar functions that are used by firms in a wide range of sectors. Firms that use these functions may choose to source them...

Export-platform foreign direct investment in which the affiliate's output is (largely) sold in third markets rather than in the parent or host markets has received empirical attention recently, but little theoretical analysis. This paper is an attempt to make some sense of this phenomenon. We...

Trade in business services has been attracting attention from academic researchers, policy makers, and business journalists. While there are many anecdotes, there has been little in the way of formal theory applied to this issue. In this paper, we adapt a general model of fragmentation of...

Trade theory consists of a portfolio of models. What elements might be useful in modeling the offshoring of white-collar services, or do these issues call for an entirely fresh approach? I try to identifying some of the important aspects of this phenomenon and then argue that modeling could...