Although the amount of U.S. imports and exports has varied greatly over time, in recent years, the U.S. has been running trade deficits. Some people react to such trade deficits with doom and gloom; others cite them as evidence that foreign governments are not playing fair in U.S. markets; still...

We review both the theoretical and empirical literature on entrepreneurship and financial frictions, with an emphasis on the heterogeneous and dynamic micro-level implications of financial frictions for macro development.

This paper studies export dynamics in emerging markets following large devaluations. We document two main features of exports that are puzzling for standard trade models. First, given the change in relative prices, exports tend to grow gradually following a devaluation. Second, high interest...

This paper uses a structural model to understand, predict, and evaluate the impact of an exogenous microcredit intervention program, the Thai Million Baht Village Fund program. We model household decisions in the face of borrowing constraints, income uncertainty, and high-yield indivisible...

This paper studies the role of international trade and the export participation decisions of establishments for the entry of establishments over the business cycle in a general equilibrium model. The model captures two key features of establishment and exporter dynamics: i) new establishments...

We study the growth in the share of US manufactured output exported from 1987 to 2002 through the lens of the Melitz (2003) model, a monopolistically competitive model with heterogenous producers and fixed costs of exporting. Using the model, we infer that iceberg costs fell from approximately...

This paper provides a quantitative evaluation of the aggregate and distributional impacts of economy-wide microfinance or other credit programs targeted toward small-scale entrepreneurs. In our analysis, we find that the redistributive impacts of microfinance are stronger in general-equilibrium,...

We study the effects of tariffs and iceberg trade costs in a two-sector dynamic variation of the Melitz (2003) model extended to include a sunk cost of exporting, establishment-level uncertainty in productivity, capital accumulation, and material usage. We calibrate the model to match both...

We study empirically and theoretically the growth of U.S. manufacturing exports from 1987 to 2007. We use plant-level data on exporters' export intensity to identify the changes in iceberg costs over this period. Given this change in iceberg costs, we find that a GE model with heterogeneous...

We provide a simple quantitative general equilibrium model of occupational choice with credit market frictions to analyze the aggregate and distributional effects of asset transfer programs. Asset transfer programs have a positive but transient effect on aggregate productivity, and a negative...