This paper uses the methodology developed in Kehoe and Ruhl (2013) to measure the change in the extensive, or new goods, margin of trade between Japan and China after China’s entry into the World Trade Organization in 2001. The new goods account for 15.9% of Japanese exports to China and 22% of Chinese exports to Japan after trade liberalization. For the case of Chinese exports to Japan, a time...

I present a theory of optimal multilateral trade agreements with public political shocks. I show that “forbearance” where one country withholds retaliation when its trading partner receives a shock is a feature of an optimal agreement. This provides a rationale for countries not acting on retaliatory rights granted under GATT. I show that there is a limit to forbearance allowable in a self-enfo...

One of the best established empirical results in international economics is that bilateral trade decreases with distance. Although well-known, this result has not been systematically analyzed before. We examine 1467 distance effects estimated in 103 papers. Information collected on each estimate allows us to test hypotheses about the causes of variation in the estimates. Our most interesting fi...

This paper argues the widespread adoption of Just-in-Time (JIT) logistics provides a key to understanding the growth in the U.S. trade share. To do so, I develop a dynamic trade model based on the choice of the logistics technology used in a firm’s supply chain. The model’s predicted trade dynamics depend on how the set of firms using JIT with international suppliers changes over time. A numeri...

Using the methodology developed in Kehoe and Ruhl (2013), I measure the change in the extensive, or new goods, margin of trade between Austria and the ten new entrants to the European Union in 2004. On average, the new goods account for 56% of the bilateral trade flow after enlargement. A time series measure shows growth in the new goods margin coincides with the period surrounding the 2004 enl...

Gravity Equations are broadly used to estimate the impacts of trade impediments on trade flows. It is often stated that results are implausibly high. In theoretical foundations of the gravity equation, trade costs usually enter as "icebergmelting-costs". This paper offers an alternative approach to model trade costs. From a microeconomic point of view, trade costs should depend on trade input p...

This paper identifies a flaw in the infant industry argument that previous literature has ignored. A simple model first replicates the infant industry logic but subsequently shows that, in the presence of a ‘traditional technology’ with poor growth potential, the infant-industry logic is likely to fail. Under protectionism domestic producers substitute advanced technologies with the low-growth ...

In a two-country infinite-horizon model, with two traded goods and two factors of production and no international borrowing and lending, there is no convergence of incomes if there is factor-price equalization. With factor-price equalization, the Euler equations of the two economies become identical. I show that in such a set-up if agents have a non-zero probability of death, then we do get con...

Banking sector openness may directly increase growth by improving the quality of financial services and increasing funds available, or indirectly by improving the efficiency of financial intermediaries, both of which may reduce the cost of financing, in turn, increase capital accumulation and economic growth. The objective of the paper is to empirically reinvestigate these direct and indirect l...

Informal discussions on international trade attribute much importance to organizational differences. Nevertheless, economic theories of international trade have not been extended to incorporate this important element. This paper integrates theories of internal organization with a model of international trade by adding another dimension — how decisions regarding which ideas or projects to accept...