There are two principal theories of why countries trade: comparative advantage and increasing returns to scale. Yet there is no empirical work that assesses the relative importance of these two theories in accounting for production structure and trade. We use a framework that nests an increasing...

This paper analyzes firm panel data to examine how export demand shocks associated with the 1997 Asian financial crisis affected Chinese exporters. We construct firm-specific exchange rate shocks based on the pre-crisis destinations of firms’ exports. Because the shocks were unanticipated and...

This paper focuses on issues of financial sector liberalization in Ethiopia, with reference in particular to the Ethiopian banking sector. We identify two factors that may constrain Ethiopia’s financial development. One is the closed nature of the Ethiopian financial sector in which there are...

This paper shows that tariffs and production subsidies can Pareto-improve welfare in a small open economy when a government is concerned with income redistribution under asymmetric information. In international trade theory, free trade is optimal if the government can use lump-sum taxes and...

I first discuss the Doha Round impasse and how this impasse has been created. I next discuss the trade interests of the industrialized and developing countries and thereafter the structure of WTO negotiations. I conclude with a discussion of the policy options for the industrialized and...