We use Italian firm-level data to investigate the impact of trade openness on the distribution of firms across marginal cost levels. In so doing, we implement a procedure that allows us to control not only for the standard transmission bias identified in firm-level TFP regressions but also for...

In models with heterogeneous firms trade integration has a positive impact on aggregate productivity through the selection of the best firms as import competition drives the least productive ones out of the market. To quantify the impact of firm selection on productivity, we calibrate and...

Italy's competitiveness problem ultimately concerns the productivity of its firms and the quality of its products. To stimulate productivity growth and upgrade the quality of products, there must be room for quot;creative destructionquot; through competition within a fair and transparent...

Due to strict reliance on competitive labor markets, standard approaches which measure skill biased technical change (SBTC) conflate labor market distortions which prevent firms from choosing the efficient ratio between skilled and unskilled labor and `true' SBTC. This contrasts with recent...

We investigate the technological dimension of productivity, presenting an empirical methodology based on mixture models to disentangle the labor productivity differences associated with the firm's choice of technology (BTFP) and those related to the firm's ability to exploit the adopted...

We ask whether the productivity advantage of internationalized firms documented by the international trade literature can be more correctly interpreted in terms of proximity to the “technological frontier”. We provide a positive answer relying on a methodology (based on mixture models) to...

We discuss how standard computable equilibrium models of trade policy can be enriched with selection effects without missing other important channels of adjustment. This is achieved by estimating and simulating a partial equilibrium model that accounts for a number of real world effects of trade...

Economic literature has so far produced very limited (country-level only) evidence on the magnitude of skilled biased technical change (SBTC) and not investigated at all the extent to which, coupled with labor market imperfections, it can be associated to an inefficient use of labor. We present...

We discuss how standard computable equilibrium models of trade policy can be enriched with selection effects without missing other important channels of adjustment. This is achieved by estimating and simulating a partial equilibrium model that accounts for a number of real world effects of trade...