This paper examines the welfare implications of an existence of free trade agreements (FTAs) and customs unions (CUs) in the GATT system, in the presence of cross-foreign ownership among countries. In particular, two GATT regimes are analyzed: a pure GATT regime without any regional free trade agreements, and modified GATT regime with either an FTA or a CU. This paper argues that, when foreign ...

The world’s largest retailers—Walmart, Carrefour, Tesco, and Metro—all entered China after 1995. They established hundreds of stores as well as centers for procuring goods to be sold worldwide. Multinational retailers may affect Chinese exports through two channels. First, they could inform outlets in other countries where they operate about the products offered by local Chinese suppliers, ther...

The title needs clarification because it suggests a broad theme concerning the relative ability of contending groups to obtain tariffs or quotas or other special devices serving to raise that industry or firm’s domestic prices above their levels if trade were free. This note is intended to focus more narrowly on a particular model scenario, that of the specific factors type, in which two firms ...

In a small open economy with heterogeneous firms, in which tariffs determine the mass of active firms, free trade optimality depends positively on the level of firm heterogeneity and negatively on transportation/adoption costs. The benefits from temporary protection depend on the level of backwardness: for a given mass of backward firms, the relative gains from protection increase with their qu...

We explore the role of the ownership structure of capital in an economy that suffers from barriers to entry and an imperfect financial system. In such an environment, an unequal distribution of capital provides an explanation for trade flows and trade gains even when countries do not differ in relative factor endowments or available technologies. Moreover, an uneven asset distribution is associ...

Using a competitive two-country two-commodity monetary model with optimizing agents in which persistent unemployment arises, this paper examines the effects of trade restrictions on consumption and employment in the two countries. When facing unemployment, a country tends to impose an import restriction so that domestic firms will increase production and raise employment. However, this policy i...

Using a competitive two-country two-commodity monetary model with optimizing agents in which persistent unemployment arises, this paper examines the effects of trade restrictions on consumption and employment in the two countries. When facing unemployment, a country tends to impose an import restriction so that domestic firms will increase production and raise employment. However, this policy i...

This paper proposes to reexamine the GATT/WTO membership effect on bilateral trade flows, using nonparametric methods including pair-matching, permutation tests, and a Rosenbaum (2002) sensitivity analysis. Taken together in a coherent manner, these methods provide an estimation framework that is robust to misspecification biases, allows general forms of heterogeneous treatment effects, and add...

Subsidies and Exports in Germany: First Evidence from Enterprise Panel Data We use newly available representative panel data for manufacturing enterprises in West and East Germany to investigate the link between production-related subsidies and exports. We document that only a small fraction of enterprises is subsidized, and that exports and subsidies are positively related. Using a matching ap...

We propose a model to study the role of industry-level external economies scale in open economies. If elasticity governing strength is below inverse trade each industry, then specialization under frictionless consistent with comparative advantage, tractable even frictions, and all countries gain from trade. External lower gains except if country specializes industries high economies, they ampli...