In the two-country Melitz (2003) model, unilateral trade liberalization is often cast as a reduction of iceberg transportation costs and wages are determined by a linear outside sector, We show that welfare results reverse when wages adjust and trade frictions are revenue-generating tariffs.

Using a cross-section of countries, we adapt Frankel and Romer’s (1999) IV strategy to international labor mobility. Controlling for institutional quality, trade, and financial openness, we establish a robust and non-negative causal effect of immigration on real per capita income.

Recent literature has argued that, contrary to the results of a seminal paper by Rose (2004), General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT)/World Trade Organization (WTO) membership does promote bilateral trade, at least for developed economies and if membership includes non-formal compliance....

Recent literature has argued that, contrary to the results of a seminal paper by Rose (2004), WTO membership does promote bilateral trade, at least for developed economies and if membership includes non-formal compliance. We review the literature in order to identify open issues. We then develop...

World trade evolves at two margins. Where a bilateral trading relationship already exists it may increase through time (intensive margin). But trade may also increase if a trading bilateral relationship is newly established between countries that have not traded with each other in the past...

This paper revisits the relationship between a country’s openness and its per capita income. Building on Frankel and Romer, it argues that a dynamic econometric specification similar to the ones used in empirical growth studies better fits the theoretical literature and also resolves some...

We sort out confounding factors in the empirical link between bilateral migration and trade. Using newly available panel data on developing countries’ diaspora to rich OECD nations in a theory-grounded gravity model, we uncover a robust, causal pro-trade effect. Moreover, we do not find...

This paper analyzes the effect of product market regulation (PMR) on unemployment in a search model with heterogeneous multiple-worker firms. In our setup, PMR modifies the distribution of firm productivities, thereby affecting the equilibrium rate of unemployment. We distinguish between PMR...