Extending Krugman’s (1991) economic geography model, this paper examines the stability of an industrial structure resulting from the production shifting-in effect of the formation of regional trade agreements. This paper claims that nonhigher external trade costs against non-member countries...

In educating students national public school systems use different methods of grouping students by ability across schools. We consider four different school systems of student allocation at different stages of schooling and their educational implications. Our two-period model suggests that both...

Recent theories and empirics suggest that trade openness increases world trade through production fragmentation across countries. In this paper we focus on the relationship between trade openness and firms¡¯ choices of vertical structure. We find firm-level data evidence that upon trade...

This paper examines the role of firm heterogeneity in the choice made by multinationals with regards to FDI type and location. Using Korean firm-level data, we find that highly productive firms are more likely than their less efficient counterparts to invest in tough markets and choose combined...

According to the WTO data for regional trade agreements (RTA), the number of RTA has been exponentially growing since the middle of the 1990s. As a result, many countries these days have had more than one free trade partner country. In this paper, we attempt to find out statistically important...

The proliferation of overlapping free trade agreements (FTA) in the recent years has led to hub-and-spokes (HAS) throughout the world. Being avid subscribers to FTAs, many countries in the Asia-Pacific region including the USA, Japan, Singapore, South Korea, Thailand and Australia have become...

This paper provides an empirical explanation to the observed disparity in cross-border M&A inflows to developing and developed countries over the last two decades. We show two main results. First, the disparity can be attributed to the difference in the quality of institutions between the two...

Motivated by the current delay in WTO negotiations, we consider a model of a bilateral trade agreement in the presence of asymmetric cross-border externalities. In this model, we show that both countries conflict in their preferred set of policy agendas and thus have incentives to delay their...