This study uses a unique firm-level dataset to examine how falling trade costs from 1993-2001 affected entry, exit, productivity, and exporting in the Korean manufacturing sector. We verify many of the predictions of recent heterogeneous-firm models of international trade. For example, falling...

I study the economic consequences of shifting bargaining power in relational contracts through interventions such as the formation of a Bargaining Group (BG) for the side of sellers in a market where buyers traditionally hold significant market power. Existing theories of relational contracts...

This paper presents preliminary results on the possible demand for weather insurance in China. Results from 1,564 farm households from Western and Central China between October 2007 and October 2008 suggest that the greater risk for farmers is drought followed by excessive rain. Heat is less...

This article questions the assumption of symmetric consumption behavior in the conventional analysis of intra-household calorie allocation. It proposes a framework that takes into account asymmetric consumption behavior due to liquidity constraints or loss aversion. Using panel data from China,...

Wal-Mart, the largest retailer worldwide, has been suspected of exercising market power over input providers, both merchandise suppliers and workers. However, in spite of a growing body of literature investigating the beneficial economic impact of the company through its price-lowering effect,...

This paper explores the impacts of China's growth in the international markets of agricultural products. These impacts are important because they are related to two different ongoing discussions about the role of China in the world economy. One of these discussions have to do with China as a...

Recent agronomic research finds that economically optimal seeding densities have likely increased for many Midwestern corn farmers as a result of genetic improvements including new GM traits such as Bt corn and herbicide tolerance. We derive a per acre demand model for hybrid seed corn to...

This paper tries to justify the observation of different return patterns in the upstream and downstream sectors of US beef production. It builds a dynamic rational expectation model separating the cow-calf and feeding sector with the former sector being the residual claimer. The model shows that...

Replaced with revised version of paper 07/29/10.

China’s transition into a developed economy is driving changes in consumer preferences and demand for foods. To evaluate consumer preferences for U.S. pork in urban China, primary data were collected in two metropolitan areas- Beijing and Shanghai. Estimated logit models revealed that an...