This paper argues that the theoretical foundations for the gravity equation are general, while the empirical performance of the gravity equation is specific to the type of goods examined. Most existing theory for the gravity equation depends on the assumption of differentiated goods. We show...

Adapting our earlier model of multinationals, we address policy issues involving wages and labor skills. Multinational firms may arise endogenously, exporting their firm-specific knowledge capital to foreign production facilities, and geographically fragmenting production into skilled and...

Economic interactions among the high-income developed countries are characterized by high degrees of both intra-industry trade and intra-industry affiliate production and sales. Similar high-income countries both heavily trade with and invest into each other. The purpose of this paper is to show...

Standards and technical regulations which govern the admissibility of imported goods into an economy raise costs of exporters entering new markets, and may have a particularly high impact on firms seeking to export from developing countries. Yet standards may also have a positive side, such as...

A two-region model is presented in which an imperfectly competitive firm produces a good with increasing returns at the plant level, and in which shipping costs exist between the two markets. Production of the good causes local pollution, and regional governments can levy pollution taxes or...

Regional trade agreements must specify domestic-content rules (rules of origin) that define the conditions under which a good qualifies as 'domestic' and so may be freely traded within the block. The paper analyzes such rules, focussing in particular on oligopolistic industries in which foreign...

One of the motivations for NAFTA from the US point of view was to reduce the" incentives for Mexican migration into the US. Unskilled rural males are a primary source of" illegal immigration and also Mexico's relatively abundant factor. This group should therefore" be made better off by trade...

A two-region, two-firm model is developed in which firms choose the number and the regional locations of their plants. Both firms pollute and, in this context, market structure is endogenous to environmental policy. There are increasing returns at the plant level, imperfect competition between...

There exist two approaches in the literature concerning the multinational firm's mode choice for foreign production between an owned subsidiary and a licensing contract. One approach considers environments where the firm is transferring primarily knowledge-based assets. An important assumption...

Recent theoretical developments have incorporated endogenous multinational firms into the general-equilibrium model of trade. One simple taxonomy separates the theory into vertical' models in which firms geographically separate activities by stages of production and horizontal' models of...