This paper analyzes how exporters are affected by corporate tax reforms in destination markets. We introduce tax policy in a trade model of multi-product firms and show that producers face tougher competition in export markets with lower corporate tax rates. This competitive effect induces firms...

This paper uses firm-level data for Mexican exporters to understand how firm-level export decisions shape a country's aggregate exports. The data allows for a characterization of both the crosssectional distribution of Mexican exports, across destinations and across exporting firms, and of the...

The article summarises the main lessons of the Bank’s 2010 conference which focused on international trade and foreign direct investment. The research is based on a microeconomic approach to the behaviour of Belgian firms, with reference to developments in the scientific literature on the...

This paper sets up a model of endogenous product differentiation to analyze the variety effects of international trade. In our model multi-product firms decide not only about the number of varieties they supply but also about the degree of horizontal differentiation between these varieties....

We use a panel of Brazilian exporters, their products, and destination markets to document a set of regularities for multi-product exporters: (i) few top-selling products account for the bulk of a firm’s exports in a market, (ii) the distribution of exporter scope (the number of products per...

In this paper, I investigate welfare gains associated with trade induced intra-firm adjustments of multi-product firms. To disentangle the welfare gains, I split up the R&D portfolio of a multi-product firm into three different channels: i) product innovation, ii) investments in the degree of...

In a two-country international trade model with oligopolistic competition, we study the conditions on market structure and trade costs under which a merger policy designed to benefit domestic consumers is too tough or too lenient from the viewpoint of the foreign country. Calibrating the model...

According to conventional wisdom, multinational firms undertake vertical FDI in order to take advantage of cross-border factor cost differences and source the inputs from abroad at better terms. Recent empirical findings though document that this is not always the case. We provide theoretical...

Governments in several countries have recently spent considerable effort to defend domestic firms against acquisition attempts from abroad and instead favoured mergers among national firms. In this paper we offer an explanation why globalization can reinforce the case for promoting national...

We introduce a simple oligopolistic trade model with international transportation costs, and analyze the profitability and the social desirability of national vs. international mergers in relation to three different issues, (i) the level of trade freeness, (ii) the possibility of rent...