What determines services TFP growth: Is it services trade or services-trade regulation? To respond to this question I use four indicators of international trade in services since 1990 – namely FDI inward stock, services imports, domestic sales of foreign affiliates (FATS) and FDI inflows –...

This paper analyzes mergers and acquisitions (M&A) as a previously neglected channel of industrial restructuring in the face of trade liberalization. Using the Canada-United States Free Trade Agreement of 1989 as a natural experiment, I show that trade liberalization leads to a significant...

We present a dynamic comparative advantage model in which moderate reductions in trade costs can generate sizable increases in trade volumes over time. A fall in trade costs has two effects on the volume of trade. First, for given factor endowments, it raises the degree of specialization of...

This paper analyzes competition between two Internet service providers (ISPs), either or both of which may choose to offer multiple service classes. In the model analyzed, a social planner who maximizes the total benefit from network usage and a profit maximizing monopolist will both form...

We model joint production-marketing strategies for two firms with asymmetric production cost structures in competition. The first firm, called the "Production-smoother," faces a convex production cost and a linear inventory holding cost. The second firm, called the "Order-taker," faces a linear...

We examine the relation between optimal venture capital contracts and the supply and demand for venture capital. Both the composition and type of financial claims held by the venture capitalist and entrepreneur depend on the market structure. Beside, different market structures involve different...

We study a simple rational expectations (RE) model whose asset pricing implications address some of the short-run mispricings, informational inefficiencies, and overreactions observed in real markets, without a need to resort to behavioral assumptions. We accomplish this by relying on the...

Trade disputes over national product standards are a growing source of tension in the international trading system. The usual pattern is that a country introduces a new product standard for all sales of a good in its local market, which is justified as necessary for consumer or environmental...

Motivated by the credit crisis 2007-08, this paper presents a theory of "capital market banks"; banks that use derivative programs to exploit ine¢ ciencies in the capital markets. I model banks’ use of asset backed commercial paper (ABCP) programs as a local game, and analyse how these...

Speculative industries exploit novel technologies subject to two risks. First, there is uncertainty about the fundamental value of the innovation: is it strong or fragile? Second, it is difficult to monitor managers, which creates moral hazard. Because of moral hazard, managers earn agency rents...