that adjusts for changes in the set of competitors (variety) and changes in non-price factors (quality in a broad sense … critics may be overstressing the role of renminbi undervaluation in explaining China’s competitive position. Oil exports …

Using Italian firm-level data for the period 2000-2006, this paper investigates the role of the quality of imported …. The analysis confirms previous findings that the imports of intermediate inputs and the quality of the exported output … the price of higher quality exported varieties. The paper shows that this finding is consistent with the predictions of a …

in the import tariff induces an incumbent importer/exporter to increase the quality of its exports and to raise its …'s producers to upgrade the quality of the goods that they export. The paper first documents two stylized facts regarding the …'s (2003) model of trade with heterogeneous firms by introducing endogenous quality choice. The model predicts that a reduction …

internationalization of small, often high quality, firms. Italy is well known for gourmet food, but is despecialized, since it has a …This paper offers a firm level perspective of global value chain participation in the food industry. Exploiting a very …, we characterize the food industry, describing its main strengths and weaknesses, and analyze the links between the …

productivity through expanding variety as well as improved input quality. The model leads to a production function where the total …What is the effect of imports on productivity? To answer this question, we estimate a structural model of producers … factor productivity of a firm depends on the share of inputs imported. To estimate this import-augmented production function …

Starting from the premise that productivity is heterogeneous across firms, Melitz (2003) explains why individual … productivity is key in determining the capability of a firm to export. In this paper we build a model along Melitz's lines to show … international markets. We show that firms with low productivity may still be able to penetrate foreign markets provided they have …

and the value of CAT exports responds differently to variation in firm productivity and trade costs than does the export … relationship between the margins of trade and firm productivity, both across firms and within firms over time. In addition, we … produced by the firm, so-called Carry-Along Trade (CAT). CAT exports are concentrated in the largest and most productive firms …

This paper investigates causal relationships between exports, imports, and economic growth in Malawi over the period … imports hypotheses in the long run, but they provide no evidence of any economic growth-driven exports. These results strongly …