In an international oligopoly model, we investigate how trade liberalisation impacts on collective bargaining outcomes when workers are represented by open shop unions. We find that, with intermediate levels of union density, trade liberalisation may lead to higher negotiated wages even if no...

The recent literature on firm exporting behaviour has established that both sunk-cost of exports and firm characteristics, such as size and productivity matter. In this paper we provide fresh evidence on the actual barriers to exporting firms face and how they vary with export experience and...

Building on Ruffin's recent interpretation of Ricardo's four numbers as labour embodied in trade rather than domestic labour coefficients, I identify the magic behind these four mystical numbers. I show that the magic lies in Ricardo's underlying logic in predicting the pattern of international...

The question of learning versus self-selection has dominated the micro-econometric literature on firm export decisions, without leading to any firm conclusions. In part this reflects the limited information content of the data typically used. In this paper we use survey data on UK firms to offer...

We develop a general equilibrium model with heterogeneous firms and Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) cost uncertainty and investigate the survival of foreign-owned firms. The survival probabilities of foreign-owned firms depend on firm-level characteristics such as productivity and host country...

The aim of this paper is to make a first step towards studying the role of social expenditure and its interaction with corporate taxation in determining the destination of foreign direct investment (FDI) flows. Using panel data for 18 OECD countries and measuring the extent of social welfare...

China has accelerated and deepened bank reform since it joined the WTO in 2001. Employing a stochastic distance function, this paper investigates the technical efficiency of banks and examines the static, selection and dynamic effects of governance changes on bank efficiency in China for the...

This paper looks at the implications of offshoring for industry employment whilst explicitly accounting for the scale and technology effects of offshoring. The effects of offshoring on employment are analysed using industry-level data for 17 high income OECD countries. Our findings indicate that...

This paper examines the link between multinational enterprises and employment growth at the plant-level. We investigate in detail the comparative response of multinationals and domestic firms to an economic crisis, using the empirical setting of a well defined case of economic slowdown in Chile...

This paper analyzes the effects of cross-border mergers and acquisitions (M&As) on the innovation of European firms. The results indicate a considerable increase in post-acquisition innovation in the merged entity. This is mainly driven by inventors based in the acquirer's country, while...