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The empirical relationship between trade protection and economic growth is surprisingly fragile, as shown in a number of other papers. We address one possible explanation for these findings: that the relationship is contingent on the pattern of comparative advantage, following the endogenous growth literature. Our findings suggest that such contingencies do in fact exist--in particular, the correlation between tariffs and growth is strong and positive for skill-abundant countries--and are robust to the choice of control variables. (JEL F13, F43, O19, 024), I. INTRODUCTION There is a shared belief among economists, policy makers, and the general public that more open economies grow faster than closed economies. Many international organizations emphasize this correlation: [...]

The effects of privatization on business performance are analyzed by focusing on China's rural and urban businesses.

Using data from the Qing dynasty, we investigate the long‐run impact of early development on today's living standards in China. We use city‐level population density in 1776 as a measure of early economic prosperity, and examine how it is associated with today's development indicators such as the average night light density, GDP per capita, average years of schooling, and trade openness. We find that cities which were more prosperous during the Qing dynasty are now also brighter, richer, more educated, and more open. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper develops a two‐country model of offshoring and immigration with occupational choice and endogenous firm productivity. Individuals in Home choose to become entrepreneurs or workers, whereas those in Foreign can only be employed as workers. Entrepreneurs produce output using a fixed set of tasks that can be performed locally or abroad. The model predicts that pro‐immigration policies increase the number of entrepreneurs, raise productivity, and improve the aggregate welfare. It also predicts that lowering offshoring costs generates job polarization and welfare polarization, but improves the aggregate welfare. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]