This paper uses data from the Indonesian manufacturing census in order to uncover the determinants of firm exports over the period 1990–2005. We examine to what extent differences in firm export propensity and intensity are a consequence of firm-level (microeconomic), of place-based...

We compare neoclassical and classical theories of outsourcing. The former is premised on an improved international division of labor and predicts a rise in the return to skill. This contrasts with the classical model, which emphasizes the distribution of income between labor and capital and its...

Most studies of offshoring rely on a 'proportionality assumption' where every sector is assumed to import each material and service input in the same proportion as its economy-wide use. We assess the bias resulting from this assumption. Since Germany collects imported inputs directly, we are...

This paper uses data from the Indonesian manufacturing census in order to uncover the determinants of firm exports over the period 1990-2005. We examine to what extent differences in firm export propensity and intensity are a consequence of firm-level (microeconomic), of place-based...

Foreign direct investment (FDI) is becoming increasingly critical to the economies of developing countries, in part due to a major expansion in the scope of global value chains (GVCs), whereby lead firms outsource parts of their production and services activities across complex international...

Two seemingly unconnected empirical results suggest an intriguing mechanism. First, economic integration helps harmonize prices internationally, with trade being the primary channel (Rogoff 1996, Goldberg and Knetter 1997). Second, monetary union may greatly increase the amount of trade among...

This paper contributes to the literature on the impact of EMU on trade, adding two new elements. First, we propose a theoretical model for explaining how the euro could have increased trade by the large amounts found in the empirical literature. Second, we propose a sectoral dataset to test the...

What determines a country's ability to compete in international markets? What fosters the global competitiveness of its firms? And in the European context, have key elements of the EU strategy such as EMU and enlargement helped or hindered domestic firms' competitiveness in local and global...

The unprecedented drop in international trade during the last quarter of 2008 and the first quarter of 2009 has mainly been analysed at the macroeconomic or sectoral level. However, exporters who are heterogeneous in terms of productivity, size or external financial dependence should be...

Global trade contracted quickly and severely during the global crisis. This paper, using a unique dataset of French firms, matching together export data with firm-level credit constraints, shows that most of the 2008-2009 trade collapse is accounted by the unprecedented demand shock and by...