I search for a "scale" effect in countries. I use a panel data set that includes 200 countries over forty years and link the population of a country to a host of economic and social phenomena. Using both graphical and statistical techniques, I search for an impact of size on the level of income,...

If one ranks cities by population, the rank of a city is inversely related to its size, a well-documented phenomenon known as Zipf's Law. Further, the growth rate of a city's population is uncorrelated with its size, another well-known characteristic known as Gibrat's Law. In this paper, I show...

As communication costs fall, foreign embassies and consulates have lost much of their role in decision-making and information-gathering. Accordingly, foreign services are increasingly marketing themselves as agents of export promotion. I investigate whether exports are in fact systematically...

I examine the hypothesis that membership in the World Trade Organization (WTO) and its predecessor the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) has increased the stability and predictability of trade flows. I use a large data set covering annual bilateral trade flows between over 175...

This paper uses 68 measures of trade policy and trade liberalization to ask if membership in theWorld Trade Organization (WTO) and its predecessor the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) is associated with more liberal trade policy. Almost no measures of trade policy are significantly...

This paper estimates the effect on international trade of multilateral trade agreements: the World Trade Organization (WTO), its predecessor the Generalized Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), and the Generalized System of Preferences (GSP) extended from rich countries to developing...

This paper estimates the effect of sovereign debt renegotiation on international trade. Sovereign default may be associated with a subsequent decline in international trade either because creditors want to deter default by debtors, or because trade finance dries up after default. To estimate the...