Recent evidence shows that the “home bias puzzle” in international trade may be associated with the mere presence of national borders (McCallum (1996)). In this paper we provide a theoretical framework to explain why borders may matter so much for trade. Our argument is that even between...

Increasingly, a small number of lowwage countries such as China, India and Mexico are involved in incremental innovation. That is, they are responsible for resolving productionline bugs and suggesting product improvements. We provide evidence of this new phenomenon and develop a model in which...

This paper presents firm level evidence on the dynamics of nonmanual wage premia and employment shares in Italian manufacturing during the nineties. We find that the relative stability of aggregate wage premia and employment shares hides o¤setting disaggregate forces. First, while technical...

This paper analyses the relationship between firm productivity and export behavior in German manufacturing firms. We examine whether productivity increases the probability of exporting, and assert that there is a causal relationship from high productivity to entering foreign markets, as...

Globalization is not only about the rise of trade, FDI, and migration. It is also about the changing linkages among these flows. The main findings of the paper can be summarized as follows. First, at least in the nineties, import trade liberalization fostered not only trade but also inward...

This paper examines the mechanisms through which trade openness affects output volatility using an industry-level panel dataset of manufacturing production and trade. The main results are threefold. First, sectors more open to international trade are more volatile. Second, trade leads to...

The aim of this paper is to understand the functioning and the scope of self-help groups in the informal settlements of urban areas as a means of generating income for poor households. The paper uses a unique dataset collected by the author in 1999 surveying all individual group members from...

In this paper, we investigate the fiscal impact of immigration on the UK economy, with a focus on the period since 1995. We provide estimates for the overall immigrant population for the period between 1995 and 2012, and for more recent immigrants who arrived since 2000, distinguishing between...

This paper provides the first direct evidence on the determinants of link formation among immigrants in the host society. We use a purposely-designed survey on a representative sample of Sri Lankan immigrants living in Milan to study how migrants form social links among them and the extent to...

This paper explores the role of information transmission and misaligned interests across levels of government in explaining variation in the degree of decentralization across countries. Within a two-sided incomplete information principal-agent framework, it analyzes two alternative...