We study the effects of tariffs and iceberg trade costs in a two-sector dynamic variation of the Melitz (2003) model extended to include a sunk cost of exporting, establishment-level uncertainty in productivity, capital accumulation, and material usage. We calibrate the model to match both...

We study empirically and theoretically the growth of U.S. manufacturing exports from 1987 to 2007. We use plant-level data on exporters' export intensity to identify the changes in iceberg costs over this period. Given this change in iceberg costs, we find that a GE model with heterogeneous...

Fixed transaction costs and delivery lags are important costs of international trade. These costs lead firms to import infrequently and hold substantially larger inventories of imported goods than domestic goods. Using multiple sources of data, we document these facts. We then show that a...

Real rigidities that limit the responsiveness of real marginal cost to output are a key ingredient of sticky price models necessary to account for the dynamics of output and inflation. We argue here, in the spirit of Bils and Kahn (2000), that the behavior of marginal cost over the cycle is...

This paper presents novel evidence of price discrimination, using prices of identical goods in 28 countries. I explain the observed phenomenon via non-homothetic preferences, in a model of trade with product differentiation and firm productivity heterogeneity. The model brings theory and data...

Recent New Keynesian models of macroeconomy view nominal cost rigidities, rather than nominal price rigidities, as the key feature that accounts for the observed persistence in output and inflation. Kryvtsov and Midrigan (2010a,b) reassess these conclusions by combining a theory based on nominal...

This paper quantifies the effect of the government-controlled appreciation of the Chinese renminbi (RMB) vis-à-vis the USD from 2005 to 2008 on the prices charged by US producers. As the RMB during that time was pegged to a basket of currencies, the empirical strategy must account for the fact...

This paper quantifies the effect of the government-controlled appreciation of the Chinese renminbi (RMB) vis-à-vis the USD from 2005 to 2008 on the prices charged by US producers. As the RMB during that time was pegged to a basket of currencies, the empirical strategy must account for the fact...

This paper examines the role of inventories in the decline of production, trade, and expenditures in the US in the economic crisis of late 2008 and 2009. Empirically, the authors show that international trade declined more drastically than trade-weighted production or absorption and there was a...