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Gravity variables such as distance, adjacency, colony, free trade agreements or language are used to capture the effects of trade costs in empirical studies. By using actual data on trade costs, this paper decomposes the overall effects of such variables on trade into those through three gravity channels: duties/tariffs (DC), transportation-costs (TC), and dyadic-preferences (PC). When PC is ignored as is typical in existing studies in the literature, it is shown that nearly all gravity effects are due to distance, 29 percent through DC and 71 percent through TC. The tables turn as the additional channel of PC is introduced and shown to dominate other channels, with adjacency contributing about 45 percent, distance about 32 percent, colony about 14 percent, free trade agreements about 7 percent, and language about 2 percent. It is implied that gravity variables mainly capture the effects of demand shifters rather than supply shifters (as implied by the existing literature). The results are further connected to several existing discussions in the literature, such as welfare gains from trade and the distance puzzle.

This paper investigates the effects of inflation on per capita income growth for 36 developed and developing countries by using structural vector autoregression models that are robust to the consideration of endogeneity by construction. The results show evidence for heterogeneity of such effects across countries that are shown to be further connected to the strength of their institutions. While the effects of inflation on growth are negative and significant in countries with stronger institutions, they are positive and significant in countries with weaker institutions.

This paper theoretically shows that changes in the distance elasticity of trade can be connected to welfare changes that depend on bilateral distance measures and expenditure shares of countries. Empirical results based on international and domestic trade data from the last two centuries show that the negative effects of distance on trade have increased over time when zero trade observations are ignored in inconsistent OLS estimations, confirming the distance puzzle in the literature. The corresponding welfare implications suggest that the world economy has experienced a cumulative welfare loss (about 81%) due to this puzzle in the last two centuries. When the puzzle is solved by considering zero trade observations in PPML estimations, the tables turn such that there are significant welfare gains from trade (about 58%) during the same period due to the decreasing negative effects of distance on trade over time. Welfare gains from further reductions in the negative effects of distance are investigated as well, suggesting significant potential gains from trade in the future.

Exchange rate pass-through (ERPT) into prices and into income loss are shown to be enough to calculate ERPT into welfare loss using implications of a simple model. These ERPT measures are estimated at the good level using a unique micro-price data set from Turkey, and they are combined with income-group-specific expenditure shares at the good level to obtain aggregate-level ERPT measures for alternative income groups. An exchange rate shock resulting in a real depreciation of 1% is shown to decrease welfare by about 0.80% for the average-income consumer, while this estimate ranges between 0.73% and 0.83% for consumers in the lowest- and highest-income quintiles, respectively, suggesting evidence for redistributive effects of an exchange rate shock. Using micro prices has further resulted in showing that traded, nondurable, flexible-price, or income-elastic goods contribute more to ERPT into welfare loss for the average-income consumer, suggesting important policy implications for filtering out the noise in the measurement of aggregate-level prices.

Using varieties of a rich model that considers sectoral heterogeneity and input-output linkages, this paper shows that the overall welfare gains of a region within a country can be decomposed into ...

International trade studies have higher macro elasticity measures compared to international finance studies, which has evoked mixed policy implications regarding the effects of a change in trade costs versus exchange rates on welfare measures. This so-called international elasticity puzzle is investigated in this paper by drawing attention to the alternative strategies that the two literatures use for the aggregation of foreign products in consumer utility functions. Using the implications of having a finite number of foreign countries in nested CES frameworks that are consistent with the two literatures, the discrepancy between the elasticity measures is explained by showing theoretically and confirming empirically that the macro elasticity in international trade is a weighted average of the macro elasticity in international finance and the corresponding elasticity of substitution across products of foreign source countries.

Abtract Using daily U S county-level data on consumption, employment, mobility and the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) cases, this paper investigates the welfare costs of COVID-19 The investigation is achieved by using implications of a model, where there is a trade-off between consumption and COVID-19 cases that are both determined by the optimal mobility decision of individuals The empirical results show evidence for about 11% of an average (across days) reduction of welfare during the sample period between February and December, 2020 for the average county There is also evidence for heterogeneous welfare costs across U S counties and days, where certain counties have experienced welfare reductions up to 46% on average across days and up to 97% in late March, 2020 that are further connected to the socioeconomic characteristics of the U S counties This article is protected by copyright All rights reserved

Using daily county-level travel data within the United States, this paper investigates the welfare costs of travel reductions due to coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) for the period between 20 January and 5 September 2020. Welfare of individuals (related to their travel) is measured by their inter-county and intra-county travel, where travel costs are measured by the corresponding distance measures. Important transport policy implications follow regarding how policymakers can act to mitigate welfare costs of travel reductions without worsening the COVID-19 spread. © 2021 The Authors. Regional Science Policy & Practice © 2021 Regional Science Association International

Using daily census block group level data from the U.S., this paper investigates the welfare costs of staying at home due to COVID-19 across socioeconomic and demographic groups. The investigation is based on an economic model of which implications suggest that the welfare costs of staying at home increase with the stay-at-home probabilities of individuals. The empirical results provide evidence for significant heterogeneity across census block groups regarding the welfare effects of staying at home. This heterogeneity is further used to obtain measures of welfare changes for different socioeconomic and demographic groups at the national level.

We analyze economics PhDs’ collaborations in peer-reviewed journals from 1990 to 2014 and investigate such collaborations’ quality in relation to each co-author’s research quality, field and specialization. We find that a greater overlap between co-authors’ previous research fields is significantly related to a greater publication success of co-authors’ joint work and this is robust to alternative specifications. Co-authors that engage in a distant collaboration are significantly more likely to have a large research overlap, but this significance is lost when co-authors’ social networks are accounted for. High quality collaboration is more likely to emerge as a result of an interaction between specialists and generalists with overlapping fields of expertise. Regarding interactions across subfields of economics (interdisciplinarity), it is more likely conducted by co-authors who already have interdisciplinary portfolios, than by co-authors who are specialized or starred in different subfields.

We analyze and document various qualities of peer-reviewed journal publications listed in the EconLit database between 1980 and 2014. At least one author of the publication had to graduate from a North American economics PhD program between 1970 and 2009. We find that the share of single-author papers diminishes over time, and North American PhDs engage more in coauthored publications. While two-author papers are published on average more than three-author papers during 1980-1999, this switches after 2000. We also find that author teams containing at least one author who is a graduate of a top thirty department publish significantly more compared with other author teams. All-female and mixed-gender author teams publish significantly less compared with all-male author teams between 1980-1999, but we find no significant difference after 2000. The shares in the different fields in total publications show little variation in three decades. While male authors are over-represented in micro and macroeconomics, female authors are over-represented in labor and development economics. Some fields, such as microeconomics, econometrics, and experimental economics, are published in high quality journals, whereas macroeconomics, public economics, industrial organization, finance, health and urban economics, and development economics are published in journals that have lower quality weights than the average journal. Labor economics and economic history are published significantly better after 2000.

This paper shows that bilateral currency crises reduce bilateral trade up to 50% after controlling for the depreciation rate. Using a trade model, these reductions are connected to the welfare costs of currency crises. The results show that a single currency crisis can result in welfare reductions through changes in international trade corresponding to more than 10% (and up to 41%) of the costs of autarky for 23 different currency crisis episodes between 1960 and 2014. These welfare costs are also shown to be greater than the welfare gains from having free trade agreements and using common currencies for 25 different currency crisis episodes.

This paper investigates inflation convergence among European countries by using sector-level data for the period between 1997:M1 and 2019:M12. Panel unit root tests at the country-sector level are conducted by using moving windows, which is useful to analyze changes in inflation convergence and the corresponding speed of convergence over time. The results suggest evidence for inflation convergence for the majority of sectors within Europe, although disruptions have been experienced by certain countries, especially during the 2008 financial crisis. Regarding the speed of inflation convergence, the average half-life across European countries has decreased from about 15 months to about 8 months during the sample period. Important sector-level implications follow for European Union (EU) candidate countries and non-euro EU member countries regarding the Maastricht Treaty.

This paper shows that daily Google trends can be used as an alternative to conventional U.S. data (with alternative frequencies) on unemployment, interest rates, inflation and coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). This information is used to investigate the effects of COVID-19 and the corresponding monetary policy on the U.S. unemployment, both nationally and across U.S. states, by using a structural vector autoregression model. Historical decomposition analyses show that the U.S. unemployment is mostly explained by COVID-19, whereas the contribution of monetary policy is almost none. An investigation based on the U.S. states further suggests that COVID-19 and the corresponding monetary policy conducted based on nationwide economic developments have resulted in unequal changes in state-level unemployment rates, suggesting evidence for distributive effects of national monetary policy.

Using daily U.S. county-level data on consumption, employment, mobility and the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) cases, this paper investigates the welfare costs of COVID-19. The investigation is achieved by using implications of a model, where there is a trade-off between consumption and COVID-19 cases that are both determined by the optimal mobility decision of individuals. The empirical results show evidence for about 11% of an average (across days) reduction of welfare during the sample period between February and December, 2020 for the average county. There is also evidence for heterogeneous welfare costs across U.S. counties and days, where certain counties have experienced welfare reductions up to 46% on average across days and up to 97% in late March, 2020 that are further connected to the socioeconomic characteristics of the U.S. counties.

We study time-series fluctuations in the United States housing market from 2010 to 2019 using the Gordon growth model. We apply a vector autoregressive model (VAR) with fixed coefficients to measure expectations at each point in time. Our results show that, using zip code level data, we are able to explain the broad movements in housing volatility with higher prediction power compared to previous studies. Using variance decomposition analysis, we find that the housing premium is the main driver of housing market fluctuations. Motivated by previous studies and using impulse response functions, we show how different components of the housing market respond over time to a shock in the interest rate in regions with different levels of income or demographics. Our findings suggest that the impact of monetary policy is bigger in the U.S. housing market when households have less income, more female members, more African Americans, or less well-educated members; a combination of these demographics and lower income in households results in a bigger impact of monetary policy in housing market, due to the necessity of housing for these families.

This paper investigates the welfare costs of urban traffic by considering its implications on good-level prices. Using price data for 40 products from 70 cities (covering 47 countries) for multiple years, the estimation results suggest that the elasticity of good-level prices with respect to the time spent in urban traffic is about 0.5. This elasticity is further connected to the welfare of individuals by using the implications of a simple model. The corresponding investigation shows that reducing the time spent in urban traffic by one minute results in a welfare gain of about 1.3% for the average city, with a range between 0.8% and 2.3% across cities.

Using daily data on policy rates from 28 advanced economies and 32 emerging markets, this paper investigates the monetary policy reaction function of central banks during the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) outbreak. The results show that emerging markets or countries without a zero bound on their interest rates were able to reduce interest rates as a reaction to reduced economic activity and to the volatility in their exchange rates, whereas advanced economies or countries with a zero bound on their interest rates were not. Several policy implications follow for countries with a zero bound on their interest rates amid COVID-19.

The degree to which domestic prices adjust to exchange rate movements is key to understanding inflation dynamics, and hence to guiding monetary policy. However, the exchange rate pass-through to inflation varies considerably across countries and over time. By estimating structural factor-augmented vector-autoregressive models for 47 countries, this paper brings to light two fundamental factors accounting for these variations: the nature of the shock triggering currency movements and country-specific characteristics. The empirical results in this paper are three-fold. First, an empirical investigation demonstrates that different domestic and global shocks can be associated with widely different pass-through ratios. Second, country characteristics matter, including policy frameworks that govern monetary policy responses, as well as other structural features that affect an economy's sensitivity to currency fluctuations. Pass-through ratios tend to be lower in countries that combine flexible exchange rate regimes and credible inflation targets. Finally, the empirical results suggest that central bank independence can greatly facilitate the task of stabilizing inflation following large currency movements and allows fuller use of the exchange rate as a buffer against external shocks.

Effects of direct flights on trade costs are investigated using micro price data at the city level. After controlling for local retail/distribution costs, traded input prices are obtained to be further used in the measurement of trade costs across cities through arbitrage conditions. The existence of a direct flight enters trade costs regressions negatively and significantly. The results are shown to be robust to the consideration of many control variables, nonlinearities in the effects of distance on trade costs, possible endogeneity of having direct flights between cities and alternative definitions of the data. The direct flights that are shown to be determined by bilateral air services agreements are further shown to reduce trade costs through an endogeneity analysis; the main policy implications are twofold: (i) international trade policies through aviation services, such as Open Skies Agreements of the U.S., are alternative trade policy tools to reduce international trade barriers; (ii) direct flights facilitate the integration of internal markets as in the case of European Union.

This paper compares the implications of having constant versus variable markups on the Law of One Price (LOP) by decomposing the good-category level prices into marginal costs of production, markups, and trade costs. Using a trade model, it is shown that the case of constant markups corresponds to log-linear trade regressions, while the case of variable markups corresponds to lin-log trade regressions. Empirical results show that marginal costs of production contribute most to the deviations from LOP for both cases of constant and variable markups; the decomposition of marginal costs further shows that destination-specific quality measures play the biggest role.

Using club-level data on domestic-league and international points from 73 countries, this paper achieves a policy evaluation of country-specific regulations regarding soccer success. The results show that restrictions on foreign direct investment reduce international competitiveness of clubs, whereas restrictions on international migration policies have no significant impact on it. Domestic inequality across clubs increases with restrictions on minimum number of home-grown players, while it goes down with restrictions on foreign direct investment or restrictions on maximum number of foreign players. The results are robust to the consideration of other domestic regulations, market value of clubs or number of matches played.

Individual tax rates and regional tax revenues: a cross-state analysis. Regional Studies. This paper analyzes the effects of state-level personal tax rates on state tax revenue and individual welfare. The policy analysis based on a general equilibrium model suggests that tax revenues would benefit from higher wage–income, sales or property taxes, while any increase in dividend–income tax would result in a reduction of revenues. It is also shown that individuals would suffer from an increase in state-level wage–income tax, dividend tax or sales tax, while they would benefit from an increase in property taxes. The heterogeneity across states is determined by a TaxIndex, a weighted average of initial taxes at the state level.

This paper investigates the relationship between the level of inflation and regional price-level convergence utilizing micro-level price data from Turkey during two clearly distinguishable periods of high and low inflation. The results indicate that higher persistence and slower convergence of price levels are evident during the low-inflation period, which corresponds to the inflation targeting (IT) regime. During the low-inflation IT regime, inflation convergence across regions appears to occur more quickly and may be responsible for the slower pace of convergence in price levels. Overall, IT in Turkey, which was successful in lowering and maintaining inflation at acceptable levels, also appears to be associated with faster convergence in inflation rates at the expense of slower convergence in price levels.

Sectoral heterogeneity has been shown to affect country-level welfare gains from trade that can be calculated by sector-specific trade elasticities and home expenditure shares. However, empirical analyses of multi-sector models are restricted to a limited number of countries and sectors, mostly due to the lack of data on sector-specific home expenditure shares. This paper first proposes a solution to this limitation by changing the way that foreign products are aggregated at the destination country, where "unbiased" multi-sector welfare gains can be captured by using country-specific trade elasticity measures. Second, the restrictive assumption of unitary importer-income elasticity is relaxed, and it is shown that the trade elasticity in the calculation of welfare gains is replaced by the newly-introduced welfare elasticity, a function of trade and income elasticities. Empirical evidence suggests that equal percentage changes in home expenditure shares result in unequal gains across countries depending on their elasticity measures.

Exchange rate pass-through (ERPT) into prices and into income loss are shown to be enough to calculate ERPT into welfare loss by using implications of a simple model. These ERPT measures are estimated at the good level by using a unique micro-price data set from Turkey, and they are combined with income-group specific expenditure shares at the good level to obtain aggregate-level ERPT measures for alternative income groups. An exchange rate shock resulting in a real depreciation of 1% is shown to decrease welfare by about 0.80% for the average-income consumer, while this estimate ranges between 0.73% and 0.83% for consumers in the lowest and highest income quintiles, respectively, suggesting evidence for redistributive effects of an exchange rate shock. Using micro prices has further resulted in showing that traded, nondurable, flexible-price, or income-elastic goods contribute more to ERPT into welfare loss for the average-income consumer, suggesting important policy implications for filtering out the noise in the measurement of aggregate-level prices.

Why do we observe proliferation of bilateral free trade agreements (FTAs) between certain types of countries instead of having progress in attaining global free trade through a multilateral FTA? We answer this question by exploring the enforceability of diieerent types of FTAs through comparing minimum discount factors that are necessary to sustain them in an in?nitely repeated game framework. We also search for the globally welfare maximizing trade agreements that are sustainable under different conditions. The results depict that transportation costs, differences in country sizes and comparative advantages are all obstacles for having a multilateral FTA. Accordingly, international development policies conducted for the removal of such obstacles should be the main goal toward achieving a multilateral FTA, which we show to be the ?rst-best solution to the maximization problem of global welfare.

This paper investigates inflation thresholds that lead to higher growth rates using five-year averages of standard variables for 84 countries from 1965 to 2004. The historical experience has important policy implications for developing countries: (i) the catch-up effect has worked only when inflation is below 12%; (ii) the positive effect of human capital on growth has been present and significant when inflation has been below 15%; (iii) financial development has been effective only when inflation has been below 10%; (iv) government size has negatively affected growth when inflation has been below 10%; (v) trade has positively affected growth when inflation has been below 8%.

Using varieties of a rich model that considers sectoral heterogeneity and input-output linkages, this paper shows that the overall welfare gains of a region within a country can be decomposed into domestic versus international welfare gains from trade. Empirical results based on state-level data from the U.S. suggest that about 91 percent of the overall welfare gains of a state are due to domestic trade with other states, on average across alternative model specifications, with a range between 72 percent and 99 percent across states. When national-level data are used for the U.S., international welfare gains are shown to be almost identical to the those obtained by the aggregation of state-level results, suggesting that one can use the implications of a region-level analysis to have national-level results based on welfare gains from trade. We use this implication to propose an approximation to measure the domestic welfare gains from trade when domestic trade data are not available. Accordingly, using the implications of the model introduced, a Dispersion of Economic Activity Index (DEAI) is introduced that depends on internal distance and elasticity measures. It is empirically shown that DEAI can capture domestic welfare gains from trade within the U.S. when standard internal distance and elasticity measures in the literature are employed. Important policy suggestions follow.

Using daily price and quantity data on imported and domestic agricultural products, this paper estimates the elasticity of substitution between home and foreign goods (i.e., the Armington elasticity), the elasticity of substitution across goods, and the elasticity of substitution across varieties of goods using estimation methodologies that are robust to any simultaneity bias. The corresponding daily welfare gains from trade are first shown to depend on the home consumption share, as well as the Armington elasticity, and then decomposed (over time) into the effects due to the nominal exchange rate, consumer price index, time-varying preferences toward foreign goods and foreign source prices. The results show that demand shocks (captured by preferences) and macroeconomic shocks (captured by inflation) contribute most to the daily welfare gains, while the effects of exchange rates are almost none.

International trade studies have higher macro (Armington) elasticity measures compared to international finance studies. This observation has evoked not only mixed policy implications regarding tariffs and exchange rates but also mixed welfare gains from trade. Regarding the policy implications, this so-called international elasticity puzzle is solved in this paper by distinguishing between elasticities of substitution and price elasticities of demand that are connected to each other through expenditure shares. It is shown theoretically and confirmed empirically that the macro elasticity in international trade is a weighted average of the macro elasticity in international finance and the elasticity of substitution across products of foreign countries. It is implied that one can always find an elasticity of substitution across foreign countries that would be consistent with different macro elasticities in the two literatures; therefore, the puzzle is something artificial due to the way that the foreign products are aggregated at destination countries. Regarding the welfare gains from trade, the two literatures are shown to have the very same implications when international finance studies have a unitary macro elasticity of substitution between home and foreign products or unitary terms of trade. As opposed to the existing literature that has offered many supply-side solutions to the puzzle, the results in this paper are independent of the supply side and thus are consistent with any production structure.

Using a disaggregated level Consumer Price Index (CPI) data, this article compares convergence properties of regional inflation rates in a small open economy, Turkey, between pre-inflation-targeting and inflation-targeting periods, where the latter also corresponds to a flexible exchange rate regime. It is found that during the inflation-targeting period, Turkish regional inflation rates have converged to each other in terms of CPI groups with relatively nontradable components, while they have diverged from each other in terms of CPI groups with relatively tradable components. Since a common and sound monetary policy among the regions of a country is supposed to have a convergence effect on regional inflation rates according to the conventional wisdom, the results for CPI groups with relatively tradable components require further attention and have significant policy implications, especially for inflation-targeting countries using flexible exchange rate regimes.

This paper examines the performance of Turkey's inflation targeting (IT) experience. We find the IT regime to be an effective framework. Our judgment is based on three broad conclusions supported by empirical analyses. First, fiscal stability is an effective tool for a successful monetary policy. Second, the overnight policy of the Central Bank of Turkey rate is a significant determinant of the changes in market lending rates, which is the preliminary step in the monetary transmission mechanism. Third, recent developments on the broader issue of the effectiveness of interest rate policy in controlling inflation through aggregate demand management and through other channels are encouraging. Based on our findings, we argue that the impact of policy rate changes on economic activity and inflation have become more predictable and changed in the direction in line with theory, improving the transmission capacity of monetary policy.

A large body of evidence links financial development to economic growth, yet the channels through which inflation affects this relationship and its stability have been less thoroughly explored. We take an econometric and graphical approach to examining these channels, and find that higher levels of financial development, combined with low-inflation, are related to higher rates of economic growth, especially in lower income countries, but that financial development loses much of its explanatory power in the presence of high-inflation. In particular, small increases in the price level seem able to wipe out relatively large growth effects of financial deepening when the annual rate of inflation lies between 4% and 19%, whereas the operation of the finance–growth link is less affected by inflation rates above this range. Growth is generally much lower, however, in such high-inflation settings where financial development is typically repressed.

We analyze the effects of credit and debit cards on the currency in circulation by using GMM estimation. Instead of using the data obtained by surveys, we use monthly data obtained by an interbank institution that keeps the statistics of all credit and debit cards usage of a small open economy, Turkey, for the period over 2002M1–2006M10. As expected from the theory, we find that an increase in the usage of credit and debit cards leads to a decrease in the currency demand. Moreover, the usage of the debit cards has a bigger effect on the money demand, compared to the usage of the credit cards. We also find that the effect of credit cards is mostly through purchases and the effect of debit cards is mostly through withdrawals

We compare, on a welfare loss basis, possible inflation targeting regimes supported by different exchange rate rules. For model parametrization, we estimate a forward looking monetary policy rule for Trukey. When variable inflation targets are taken into consideration, as opposed to the fixed targets used in prior research that use data from developed countries, forward looking Taylor rules provide a reasonable description of Central Bank behaviour in Turkey. By applying a calibration based on estimated parameters, we compare the loss functions under flexible inflation targeting and strict inflation targeting while taking into consideration the supporting regimes, namely a flexible exchange rate and a managed floating exchange rate. We find that the welfare loss function caused by four simultaneous shocks, namely a foreign interest rate shock, a monetary policy shock, a foreign output shock and a domestic output shock, is minimized under the flexible inflation targeting regime supported by a managed float...

Forward looking monetary policy rules are estimated for Israel and Turkey. When variable inflation targets are taken into consideration, as opposed to the fixed targets used in prior research that use data from developed countries, forward looking Taylor rules seem to provide reasonable description of Central Bank behaviour in both countries. In general, it can be said that monetary policy appears to be quite strong in these countries, and especially so in Turkey, when compared with developed countries.

This paper investigates the relationship between relative price variability (RPV) and inflation using monthly micro-price data for 128 goods in 13 Turkish regions/cities for the period 1994–2010. The unique feature of this data set is the inclusion of annual inflation rates ranging between 0% and 90%. Semi-parametric estimations show that there is a hump-shaped relationship between RPV and inflation, where the maximum RPV is achieved when annual inflation is approximately 20%. It is shown that this result is consistent with a region- or city-level homogenous menu cost model that features Calvo pricing with an endogenous contract structure and non-zero steady-state inflation.

Consumers face significantly different gasoline prices across gas stations. Using gasoline price data obtained from 98,753 gas stations within the U.S., it is shown that such differences can be explained by a model utilizing the gasoline demand of consumers depending on their income and commuting distance/time, where the pricing strategies of both gas stations and refiners are taken into account. The corresponding welfare analysis shows that there are significant redistributive effects of gasoline price changes among consumers where the main determinant is shown to be the consumer income; e.g., welfare costs of an increase in gasoline prices are found to be higher for lower income consumers.

This paper measures the pass-through of trade costs into U.S. import prices by using actual data on duties/tariffs and freight-related costs. The key innovation is to decompose the indirect effects of trade costs (on prices) into the effects on markups, quality and productivity while measuring/interpreting the pass-through of trade costs into welfare. Robust to the consideration of variable versus constant markups, there is evidence for incomplete pass-through, mostly due to the negative indirect effects of trade costs on marginal costs, suggesting that lower trade costs are associated with imports that have higher marginal costs; markups are affected relatively less. When the effects of trade costs on marginal costs are further decomposed into their components, the positive contribution of quality dominates in all cases, followed by the negative effects of productivity, suggesting that lower trade costs are associated with higher-quality imports that have been produced with lower productivity.

Why is a proliferation of bilateral free trade agreements (FTAs) between certain types of countries observed instead of progress in attaining global free trade through a multilateral FTA? This paper answers this question by exploring the enforceability of different types of FTAs through comparing minimum discount factors that are necessary to sustain them in an infinitely repeated game framework. The authors search for the globally welfare maximizing trade agreements that are sustainable under different conditions. The results depict that transportation costs, differences in country sizes and comparative advantages are all obstacles for having a multilateral FTA. Accordingly, international development policies conducted for the removal of such obstacles should be the main goal toward achieving a multilateral FTA, which is shown to be the first‐best solution to the maximization problem of global welfare.

This paper analyzes the effects of personal tax rates on macroeconomic variables at regional and national levels through a general equilibrium trade model with private and public sectors, migrating individuals, intermediate inputs and ?nal goods trade, and an analytical solution. The regional model can explain state-level variables in the U.S. almost perfectly. The counterfactuals on the U.S. economy suggest that a nationwide increase in the state-level dividend-income tax rates would be the best option to expand the private sector, tax revenues, and, most importantly, the individual welfare in all states; a nationwide increase in the state-level wage-income tax rates would hurt the economy in all states; property and sales taxes have fewer effects on the U.S. economy. The results are mainly driven by intermediate input trade.

This paper investigates the connection between economic agglomeration and trade patterns within the United States at the industry level. On the consumption side, industry- and state-specific international imports and elasticities of substitution are shown to be systematically connected to consumption agglomeration effects, while on the production side, industry- and state-specific international exports and intermediate input trade are shown to be systematically connected to production agglomeration and specialization effects. Industry structures play an important role in the determination and magnitude of these effects.

This paper investigates the relationship between the level of inflation and regional price-level convergence utilizing micro-level price data from Turkey during two clearly distinguishable periods of high and low inflation. The results indicate that higher persistence and slower convergence of price levels are evident during the low-inflation period, which corresponds to the inflation-targeting (IT) regime that was successful in lowering and maintaining inflation at acceptable levels. During this low-inflation IT regime, it is also shown that inflation convergence across regions appears to occur more quickly and may be responsible for the slower pace of convergence in price levels.

This paper develops an open-economy DSGE model to analyze the effects of international trade costs on monetary policy of open economies. The implications of this micro-founded New-Keynesian model are tested on a prototype small economy that is open to international trade costs shocks, Canada. When a utility-based expected loss function is considered, the central bank is found to be far from being optimal in its actions, independent of international trade costs. When an ad hoc expected loss function considering the volatilities in inflation, output and interest rate is considered, it is found that the actions of the central bank are explained best when international trade costs in fact exist but the central bank ignores them. Given the ad hoc loss function, the actions of the central bank are best explained when 70% of weight is assigned to inflation, 15% of weight to interest rate and 15% of weight to output.

A large body of evidence links financial development to economic growth, yet the channels through which inflation affects this relationship and its stability have been less thoroughly explored. We take an econometric and graphical approach to examining these channels, and find that higher levels of financial development, combined with low inflation, are related to higher rates of economic growth, especially in lower-income countries, but that financial development loses much of its explanatory power in the presence of high inflation. In particular, small increases in the price level seem able to wipe out relatively large growth effects of financial deepening when the annual rate of inflation lies between 4 and 19 percent, whereas the operation of the finance-growth link is less affected by inflation rates above this range. Growth is generally much lower, however, in such high inflation settings where financial development is typically repressed.

Recent empirical research on the New Keynesian Phillips Curve (NKPC) does not offer any supporting evidence for its benchmark version in which all firms are forward-looking. There is, however, empirical support for a modified, "hybrid", NPKC, in which only a proportion of the firms that use a forward-looking rule to set prices.This paper estimates both the benchmark and the hybrid versions of the NKPC using Turkish data. In contrast with the previous applications on developed countries like the U.S. and several Euro area countries, we find empirical support for the benchmark NPKC. This support persists even after controlling for the weak identification problem which has been a serious concern in generalized method of moment estimation. Moreover, the hybrid NKPC is refuted by the data, i.e. the backward-looking behavior is found to be statistically insignificant.

Why do some countries develop more than others? Do their strategies on international trade have a role on this? In this paper, two different industrialization strategies, import substitution and export promotion, are compared. The advantages and the disadvantages of these strategies on their development are stated.