A model of firm innovation illustrates the effects of the threat of imitation and product varieties on a representative firm ' s decision to invest in research and development to produce new product varieties. The model motivates two empirical questions: (1) Is research and developm ent...

This paper studies the relationship between the growth of China and India in world merchandise trade and Latin American and Caribbean commercial flows from two perspectives. First, the authors focus on the opportunity that China and India's markets have offered Latin American and Caribbean...

The North American Free Trade Agreement (<EM t="s">nafta</EM>) is arguably the first "case study" of what might be expected from the increasing number of preferential trade agreements involving both developed and developing economies. Ten years after the treaty's inception, it is time to assess how its...</em>

Estimates of labor mobility costs are needed to assess the responses of employment and wages to trade shocks when factor adjustment is costly. Available methods to estimate those costs rely on panel data, which are seldom available in developing countries. We propose a method to estimate...

This paper explores the impact of structural reforms on a comprehensive set of macro-level labor-market outcomes, including the unemployment rate, the average wage index, and overall and female employment levels and labor force participation rates. Together these outcome variables capture the...

The returns to schooling and the skill premium are key parameters in various fields and policy debates, including the literatures on globalization and inequality, international migration, and technological change. This paper explores the skill premium and its correlation with exports in Latin...

This paper studies the volatility of commodity prices on the basis of a large dataset of monthly prices observed in international trade data from the United States over the period 2002 to 2011. The conventional wisdom in academia and policy circles is that primary commodity prices are more...

This volume studies the role of natural resources in development and economic diversification. It brings together a variety of analytical perspectives, ranging from econometric analyses of economic growth to historical studies of successful development experiences in countries with abundant...