This paper studies how comparative advantage and the political elites' endowments shape long-run performance in an economy with imperfect political institutions. In a capital-scarce economy, an autocrat catering to the needs of landowners favours openness to trade at an early stage of...

We study the evolution of the global arms trade network using a unique dataset on all international transfers of major conventional weapons over the period 1950-2007. First, we provide a careful description of the characteristics of global arms trade using tools from social network analysis....

The paper estimates the causal effect of trade liberalisation on aggregate productivity through mechanisms related to firm selection. The construction of a bridge in 2000 across the Öresund Strait linking Copenhagen with Malmö, Swedens third largest city, provided a natural experiment with...