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Working Paper
Factor endowments and industrial structure
What determines industrial structure? Do sector-specific characteristics such as unionization, regulation, and trade policy dominate production patterns? One is inclined to believe so based on countless industry-level studies and the many political battles that are continually fought over trade and industrial policy. In contrast, standard neoclassical trade theory suggests that industrial structure is primarily driven by relative factor supplies. This paper demonstrates that aggregate factor endowments explain much of the structure of production---independent of industry idiosyncrasies---and ...
Journal Article
Ronald Coase; the nature of firms and their costs
Working Paper
Spatial organization of firms
A firm?s production activities are often supported by non-production activities. Among these activities are administrative units including headquarters, which process information both within and between firms. Often firms physically separate such administrative units from their production activities and create stand alone Central Administrative Offices (CAO). However, having its activities in multiple locations potentially imposes significant internal firm face-to-face communication costs. What types of firms are more likely to separate out such functions? If firms do separate administration ...
Report
The Industrial Revolution: past and future
"We live in a world of staggering and unprecedented income inequality," writes Nobel Laureate Robert Lucas in the 2003 annual report essay. Lucas goes on to use economic history to frame explanations and present possible solutions to this global quandary.
Working Paper
Trade structure, industrial structure, and international business cycles
This paper examines the extent to which the composition of a country's production and trade differs among its trade partners. For example, does the US export the same bundle of goods to the UK as it does to Japan? If we find high dispersion in a country's export and import bundles with its various trading partners, can this be linked to identifiable country characteristics? These findings are important for two reasons. First, they enrich our empirical understanding of the nature of trade. Second, they will stand as a guide for further development of economic theories of the international ...
Working Paper
Nationwide branching and its impact on market structure, quality and bank performance
Based on a sample for 1993-1999, this paper examines the effects of nationwide branching, following the Riegle-Neal Act, on various aspects of banking markets and bank service and performance. While concentration at the regional level has increased dramatically, deregulation has left almost intact the market structure of urban markets, which have between two to three dominant firms--controlling over half of a market's deposits--in 1999 just as they did in 1993. A significant portion of the observed increase in bank quality can be traced to the implementation of nationwide branching. By ...
Working Paper
The home market and the pattern of trade: round three
Does national market size matter for industrial structure? Round One (Krugman) answered in the affirmative: Home market effects matter. Round Two (Davis) refuted this, arguing that an assumption of convenience--transport costs only for the differentiated goods--conveniently obtained the result. In Round Three we relax another persistent assumption of convenience--industry types differentiated only by the degree of scale economies--and find that market size reemerges as a relevant force in determining industrial structure.
Working Paper
The most-favored nation rule in club enlargement negotiation
We study the effects of the Most-Favored Nation rule in an applicant's negotiation to join a club. When the applicant has to carry out a series of bilateral bargains with the existing members, we find that there are two effects of the MFN rule, viz. the hardened bargainer effect and the free-rider effect. The former effect tends to favor the applicant, while the latter effect tends to hurt the applicant. We find that the free-rider effect is stronger the more asymmetric are the members. The hardened bargainer effect is stronger the larger is the "size of the pie." As the number of members ...