This article provides an economic explanation regarding why the share of U.S. pork raised on company-owned farms with hired management (integration) is increasing relative to production through independently owned-and-operated contract growers (contracting). The article develops a property...

Virtual water trade is increasingly recognized as a useful metaphor for thinking about freshwater resources in an international context. Its legitimacy in terms of economic theory has been questioned by a number of authors, however. In this article I develop new theoretical results that place...

We develop a simulation model of world crop markets that is based upon Ricardian comparative advantage. We apply the model to twenty-three countries and provide measures of the degree of globalization in this sector, the gains from trade, and the elasticity of trade volumes to trade costs. The...

This study examines whether nonhomothetic preferences underlie the "missing trade" problem associated with factor content of trade models. We first find that per capita income goes a long way in explaining differences in goods consumption across countries. We then find a striking correlation...

When a country imports goods that have been assembled abroad, some amount of the labor and capital services embodied in those goods may originally be from the country that is now importing them. Similarly, some of the value added of a country's exports may be foreign in origin. For the median...

Strategic trade theory shows that government intervention in markets with small numbers of traders can boost the welfare of a country relative to free trade. This survey critically assesses the empirical evidence regarding this possibility. One finding is that while many international food and...