This study uses firm-level data on a large sample of European manufacturing firms to investigate the links between opening up foreign affiliates and firms' productivity. The analysis is guided by recent theoretical models of international trade with firm heterogeneity. The paper finds that while...

This study has two components: identification of concrete examples of services exports by developing countries, and quantitative studies on the gains from services liberalisation. While the study is by no means comprehensive, and is subject to many limitations, two fundamental findings emerge....

Since Rose (2000), many scholars have found empirical evidence linking trade to exchange rate volatility and currency unions. Our paper takes a first step toward providing theoretical underpinnings for this "Rose effect". In our Melitz-like trade model, reduced volatility boosts trade by...

It is generally accepted that a "global chain"-orchestrated by a lead firm-is the relevant unit of analysis for research on contemporary global industries. However, our research shows that value chains (GVCs) and supply chains (GSCs) are only segments of the massively complex "ecosystem of...

Digitization is transforming the organization and geography of industries. Once digitized, information can be generated, collected, stored, monitored, analyzed, and processed in ways not previously possible, and when common standards are used as modular interfaces, data can be transferred and...

Vietnam is at a crossroads. It can grow as an export platform for GVCs, specializing in low value-added assembly functions with industrialization occurring in enclaves with little connection to the broader economy or society; or it can leverage the current wave of growth, enabled and accelerated...

In the Western Balkans, trade and transport policy reforms that reduce waiting time at the border by just three hours are equivalent to removing a value-based tariff of 2 percent. Reform gains are maximized when they are coordinated across economies and implemented jointly: cross-border...