We study the desirability of limits on the public debt and of political turnover in an economy where incumbents have an incentive to set public expenditures above the socially optimal level due to rent-seeking motives. Parties alternate in office and cannot commit to future policies, but they...

Countries worldwide have implemented lockdown measures to contain the covid-19 pandemic. After more than three months of restrictions to economic activities in many countries, the question has turned to the best ways to lift lockdowns while keeping the epidemic in check. Here I use basic...

We show that the Brazilian trade liberalization in the early 1990s led to a permanent relative decline in the vote share of left-wing presidential candidates in the regions more affected by the tariff cuts. This happened even though the shock, implemented by a right-wing party, induced a...

Using a gravity-like approach, we study how Covid-19 deaths and lockdown policies affected countries’ imports from China during 2020. We find that a country’s own Covid-19 deaths and lockdowns significantly reduced its imports from China, suggesting that the negative demand effects prevailed...

How do exporters expand their product scope and geographical presence? We argue that new exporters are uncertain about their profitability in different countries and products, but learn it as they start to export. As a consequence, exporters add products and countries sequentially, in an...

Service inputs are a key component of the costs of exporting, and contribute to explain the process of internationalization of firms. A new dataset on the participation of French firms in global value chains reveals that firms with longer export experience in a market are more likely to source...

We study, theoretically and empirically, how countries choose intra-bloc tariffs and preferential margins when they form Preferential Trade Agreements (PTAs). Our model indicates that countries should set systematically lower preferential margins when the bloc takes the form of a free trade area...

We show that the Brazilian trade liberalization in the early 1990s led to a permanent relative decline in the vote share of left-wing presidential candidates in the regions more affected by the tariff cuts. This happened even though the shock, implemented by a right-wing party, induced a...

We study the welfare impact of rules of origin in free trade agreements where final-good producers source customized inputs from suppliers within the trading bloc. We employ a property-rights framework that features hold-up problems in suppliers' decisions to invest, and where underinvestment is...

Using detailed data on trade and tariffs from 1992-2007, the authors examine how the ASEAN Free Trade Agreement has affected trade with nonmembers and external tariffs facing nonmembers. First, the paper examines the effect of preferential and external tariff reduction on import growth from...