To study the effects of tariffs on GDP one needs import demand elasticities at the tariff line level that are consistent with GDP maximization. These do not exist. We modify Kohli’s (1991) GDP function approach to estimate demand elasticities for 4625 imported goods in 117 countries. Following...

This paper assesses the foreign lobbying forces behind the tariff preferences that the United States grants to Latin American and Caribbean countries. The basic framework is the one developed that is extended to explain the relationship between foreign lobbying and tariff preferences. Results...

The author provides sectoral evidence that sheds new light on the current debate regarding the sources of growth of the East Asian miracle. The author tests both the productivity-driven and endowment-driven hypotheses using Hong Kong's sectoral data. The results show that most of the growth in...

This paper studies how industry export variety can be constructed and empirically relates trade liberalisation to the expansion of export variety. We document the expansion in export varieties from Mexico due to NAFTA. We also investigate the growth in export variety from China over 1990-2001,...

In previous work (Kee and Krishna (2008), "Firm Level Heterogeneous Productivity and Demand Shocks: Evidence from Bangladesh," American Economic Review, 98(2)) we argued that two dimensions of firm heterogeneity (firm specific productivity and firm and market specific demand shocks) were needed...

In the classic literature of multi-sector small open economy, there are two, competing hypotheses on growth. Findlay and Grubert (1959) showed that productivity growth in one sector affects the factor intensity of all sectors. Rybczynski (1955) presents the long run growth effects of endowment...

To understand the role of trade policies in the crisis of 2008, this paper constructs the overall trade restrictiveness indices for a wide range of countries using their tariff schedules in 2008 and 2009. The index summarizes the trade policy stance of a country, taking into account the share of...