This paper examines international trade in tainted food and other low-quality products. We first find that for a large class of environments, free trade is the trading system that conveys the highest incentives to produce non-tainted high-quality goods by foreign exporters. However, free trade...

This paper investigates linkages among quot;reverse importsquot;, foreign direct investment, and exchange rates. As an example we have in mind the competition in the Japanese market of a Japanese multinational firm and a Chinese domestic firm. Products are differentiated based on Japanese...

This paper models the interactions of a labor union and a monopoly firm under an import quota in a small open economy. The distorted equilibrium is depicted in a diagram, in which wages and employment in both sectors, and the monopoly rent can be identified. The imposition of an import quota in...

We construct a partial equilibrium model of intra-industry cross-hauling DFI with unionized duopoly, where wages and employment are determined through Nash bargaining between firms and national labor unions. We show that under symmetry, cross-hauling DFI is the unique Nash equilibrium, in which...

This paper presents a simple model of a partially decentralized multinational firm (MNF) in competition with a rival firm. It is shown that transfer pricing can be used as a rent-shifting device by the MNF to compete with the rival. This arises because the MNF headquarters uses the transfer...

This paper examines the relationship between resource development and industrialization. When transport costs are high, the region with a more valuable natural resource offers a higher welfare than the other region. However, when transport costs decrease, firms begin to move out of the region,...

This paper examines the role of dual sourcing (e.g., outside options) in vertical and horizontal relations. In a bilateral monopoly market, if either the upstream or downstream firm has outside options, the other firm could lose from seemingly positive shocks, e.g., market expansion or...

Pollution-intensive industries are generally characterized by imperfect competition, increasing returns to scale and large transportation costs. We investigate two countries, N and S, each with two sectors. Manufacturing generates cross-border pollution which reduces cross-setoral production in...

The paper embeds child labor in a standard two-sector general-equilibrium model of a small open economy facing perfectly competitive markets, efficiency wages, and free-trade. The modern sector produces a homogeneous good using skilled adult labor and capital, and offers effort-based efficiency...

We consider a bilateral monopoly with a supplier and a buyer. Their trading terms are determined through negotiations, but affected by the buyer's efforts to search for outside suppliers. We find surprisingly that a market expansion may harm the supplier