Recent empirical studies have been searching for evidence on and driving forces for offshoring. Frequently, this has been done by analyzing gross trade flows related to offshore activities using gravity equations augmented by ad hoc measures of supply-side country differences. This paper...

We suggest that bilateral gravity equations augmented by ad hoc measures of absolute supply-side country differences are misspecified. Building on Haveman and Hummels (2004), we develop and test an alternative specification rooted in incomplete specialization that views bilateral gravity...

We aim to put comparative price developments of transition economies in an international perspective. We argue that estimating simple price-productivity relationships without the inclusion of other explanatory factors connected to reform effort might severely bias estimates for CEEC and CIS...

Recent panel studies have found relatively high point estimates for the elasticity of ag-gregate price measures with respect to productivity in (former) transition economies, while other studies report price-productivity elasticity estimates to depend positively on average productivity in the...

We propose a novel way to measure the rule of law intensity of exports at the goods level based on nearly 100 million disaggregated bilateral trade flows around the globe. We categorise goods into three groups: fragmented, primary and other. The theoretical literature on holdup problems...

Trade policy has well documented effects on trade volumes. Reaching beyond volumes, I explore the impact of European emerging economies' recent institutional trade liberalisation on extensive (i.e., the set of imported goods) versus intensive import margins (volumes per imported good) with...

Recent empirical studies have been searching for evidence on and driving forces for offshoring. Frequently, this has been done by analyzing gross trade flows related to offshore activities using gravity equations augmented by ad hoc measures of supply-side country differences. This paper...

Recent panel studies have found relatively high estimates for the elasticity of real exchange rates with respect to productivity measures in transition economies within Balassa- Samuelson frameworks. This contrasts with other findings reporting cross-section price-income elasticity estimates to...

Within a standard gravity framework I explore the impact of country size and trade liberalisation on extensive and intensive margins of imports across broad categories of goods. This allows testing hypotheses from two distinct strands of the trade literature, i.e., vertical integration versus...

Several trade-based measures of product variety have recently been used implicitly to represent states of technology, promoting long-run growth. In this paper, we define the state of technology as the range of specialised production processes and propose the variety of capital goods available...