In the model where the choices of technology by firms endogenously determine productivity differences, we investigate the link between factor endowment and the productivity both in the firm and industry levels. We find among others that firms in capital-abundant countries tend to adopt new advanced technologies more in their production processes, and that opening to international trade will not...

Based on Helpman et al. (2004) we propose a simple two-country (Home and Foreign) model with heterogeneous firms to capture the role of FDI via utilizing time zone differences. Two countries are located in different time zones and there is no overlap in daily working hours. It will be shown that productivities of the firms undertaking FDI are higher than the productivities of non-FDI f i r m s ...

This article investigates common economic consequences of population aging and economic integration for agglomeration processes. We introduce demography into the New Economic Geography by generalizing the constructed capital approach to account for changes in the age structure of the population. Interestingly, the level of trade costs triggering catastrophic agglomeration is rather sensitive to...

We construct a model of trade with heterogeneous retailers to examine the effects of trade liberalization on retail market structure, imports and social welfare. We are especially interested in investigating the transmission of lower import prices into consumer prices and the effects of retail market regulation. The paper shows that changes in import prices may have large effects on consumer pr...

We investigate the effects of human capital accumulation on trade and productivity by integrating a micro-founded education and fertility decision of households into a model of international trade with firm heterogeneity. Our theoretical framework leads to two testable implications: i) the export share of a country increases with the education level of its population, ii) the average profitabil...

According to the World Investment Report 2004, the structure of FDI has shifted towards services. Further, the composition of services FDI is also changing from trade and finance to such industries as electricity, water, telecommunications, storage and transportation. In the latter sector the value of FDI stock rose 16-fold between 1990 and 2002. Incorporating a transport sector dominated by mu...

This paper investigates the relationship between international trade and the quality of economic institutions. We model institutions as fixed costs of entry, in a framework that has two key features. First, preferences over entry costs differ across firms and depend on firm size. Larger firms prefer to set higher costs of entry, in order to reduce competition. Second, these costs are endogenous...

This paper examines the impact of the outsourcing of production on the volume and composition of the home country’s research and development. We find that outsourcing decreases the process R&D of the multinational firm in large markets when it only conducts process R&D (the substitution effect between outsourcing and process R&D). Outsourcing tends to emerge as a complementary factor to product...

FDI has received surprisingly little attention in theoretical and empirical work on openness and growth. This paper presents a theoretical growth model where MNCs directly affect the endogenous growth rate via technological spillovers. This is novel since other endogenous growth models with MNCs, e.g. the Grossman-Helpman model, assume away the knowledge-spillovers aspect of FDI. We also presen...

In this note, we examine how trade liberalization affects the profits of firms in the presence of network effects. We will show that, contrary to conclusions in the previous literature, trade liberalization between identical countries increases firms’ profits despite intensified competition. (JEL Classification: D43, F12, L13) ∗e-mail: [email protected] †We would like to thank David And...