Most independent nations today were part of empires in 1945. Using bilateral trade data from 1948 to 2006, we examine the effect of independence on post-colonial trade. While there is little short-run effect on trade, after four decades trade with the metropole (colonizer) has contracted by...

In an effort to stimulate trade, has Canada conducted regular trade missions starting in 1994, often led by the Prime Minister. According the Canada, these mission have led to tens of billions of dollars in new business deals. This paper uses multilateral trade data and a gravity equation to...

Much foreign direct investment (FDI) takes the form of mergers and acquisitions (Mamp;A). It is commonplace in finance to view acquisitions as manifestations of the market for corporate control. Following on that insight we propose a model of FDI in which headquarters bid to control overseas...

We study Japanese investments between 1980 and 1992 to assess the effectiveness of state promotion efforts in light of strong agglomeration economies in Japanese investment. Two policy variables are consistently shown to influence the location of investment - foreign trade zones and labor...

Recent theories of economic geography suggest that firms in the same industry may be drawn to the same locations because proximity generates positive externalities or 'agglomeration effects.' Under this view, chance events and government inducements can have a lasting influence on the...

We study Japanese investments between 1980 and 1992 to assess the effectiveness of state promotion efforts in light of strong agglomeration economies in Japanese investment. Two policy variables are consistently shown to influence the location of investment - foreign trade zones and labor...

The World Trade Organisation published a Trade Policy Review of Canada in 2003. In this paper, we discuss the WTO Review and augment the discussion by presenting original data and reviewing the empirical literature. The WTO concludes that Canada's trade regime is open and transparent but...

In a model where upstream network insiders conduct relationship-specific investment, downstream firms have an incentive to transact within networks. Evidence from U.S. auto parts exports to 26 auto-producing countries supports key predictions of the model. Greater production scale for assemblers...

This paper develops a model in which upstream network insiders' conduct relationship specific investment that induces the downstream firm to transact within networks. The scale of destination-country production and part-specific measures of the importance of network relationships and engineering...