This paper examines the persistent deterioration in the international external position of the U.S. over the past 60 years. I develop a model without Ponzi schemes and arbitrage opportunities that accounts for both the secular rise and the cyclical variations in the U.S. international debt...

This paper analyzed the role of processing trade in China's bilateral trade balances and the impact of the yuan's appreciation on processing trade. The analysis is based on a panel data covering China's 51 major trading partners from 1993-2008. The empirical analysis shows that: (1) processing...

This paper presents numerical simulation results that suggest that China can both reduce its trade imbalance and receive welfare benefits by switching the value added tax (VAT) regime from the current destination principle to an origin principle. With the tax on exports exceeding that no longer...

This paper reconsiders one of the fundamental results in trade theory: the law of comparative advantage (Deardorff, 1980, 1994) from an empirical point of view. The contribution of this paper is to conduct a test of the law of comparative advantage that is consistent with both balanced and...

We study trade imbalances between world countries in the period 1960-2000 using a complex-network approach. We show that trade imbalances in absolute value are characterized by a hierarchical arrangement wherein few rich economies display high clustering and carry an important amount of...

We propose a contingency financing framework to assist low-income countries in the achievement of debt sustainability. The framework relies on an accounting method to quantify external shocks to the balance of payments and provides compensatory financing to offset their impact. We apply the...

This paper studies the relative prices of dual-class shares - i.e., equities from the same company that are listed on two different markets. Theoretically, frictions such as short-sale constraints and limited risk-bearing capacity can lead identical securities trading in different markets to...

What are the effects of increased trade in goods and services on the trade balance? We study the effects of reducing transport costs in a Ricardian model with complete asset markets. Trade integration has three effects on the structure of the economy: a reduction in the home bias in consumption,...

Rising current account and merchandise trade imbalances marked the years before the global financial and economic crisis. These imbalances either contributed to or precipitated the crisis and to the extent that they create systemic risks, it is desirable that they be reduced. There are many...

With the U.S. trade deficit at high levels, many look to a dollar depreciation to curb the U.S. appetite for foreign goods by pushing up the cost of imports. Yet three factors - the use of the dollar in invoicing U.S. trade, the market share concerns of exporters, and sizable U.S. distribution...