Globalization

This article explores the use of marketing metrics by a sample of Vietnamese firms, providing an example of the use of marketing metrics in a "transition" economy as it grows and becomes more market and marketing driven. The analysis reports usage frequency and then develops a set of "correlation chains" linking firm characteristics, metric use, and various indicators of performance. Vietnamese managers generally report that several types of metrics are used. Ownership structure and industry also impact which metrics are utilized.

We match Big Mac prices with prices of its ingredients as a unique prism to study real exchange rates (RERs). This approach has several advantages. First, the levels of the Big Mac RER can be measured meaningfully. Second, as the exact composition of a Big Mac is known, the contributions of its tradable and non-tradable components can be estimated relatively precisely. Third, the dynamics of the RER can be studied in a setting free of several biases inherent in CPI-based RERs. Finally, a large cross-country dimension allows us to overturn the Engel result on what drives RERs.

This paper examines two related issues: (a) the implicit methodology used by the U.S. Treasury in determining whether China and America's other trading partners manipulate their exchange rates, and (b) the nature of the Chinese exchange rate regime since July 2005.

While new conventional wisdom warns that developing countries should be aware of the risks of premature capital account liberalization, the costs of not removing exchange controls have received much less attention. This paper investigates the negative effects of exchange controls on trade. To minimize evasion of controls, countries often intensify inspections at the border and increase documentation requirements. Thus, the cost of conducting trade rises.

This paper aims to provide a theory of current account adjustment that generalizes the textbook version of the intertemporal approach to current account and places domestic labor market institutions at the center stage. In general, in response to a shock, an economy adjusts through a combination of a change in the composition of goods trade (i.e., intra-temporal trade channel) and a change in the current account (i.e., intertemporal trade channel). The more rigid the labor market, the slower the speed of adjustment of the current account towards its long-run equilibrium.

This paper analyzes the determinants of buyout funds' investment decisions. In a model in which the supply of capital is "sticky" in the short run, we link the timing of funds' investment decisions, their risk-taking behavior, and the returns they subsequently earn on their buyouts to changes in the demand for private equity, conditions in the credit market, and funds' ability to influence their perceived talent in the market. Using a proprietary dataset of 207 buyout funds that invested in 2,274 buyout targets over the last two decades, we then investigate the implications of the model.

This paper furnishes robust evidence that the WTO has had a strong positive impact on trade, amounting to about 120 percent of additional world trade (or US$ 8 trillion in 2000 alone). The impact has, however, been uneven. This, in many ways, is consistent with theoretical models of the GATT/WTO. The theory suggests that the impact of a country's membership in the GATT/WTO depends on what the country does with its membership, with whom it negotiates, and which products the negotiation covers.

This study offers the first empirical microeconomic analysis of the effectiveness of dollar debt and contract redenomination policies to mitigate adverse financial and relative price consequences from a large devaluation.

Electronics waste is severely damaging to the environment and human health, especially in developing countries. New regulations in the European Union, California and China prohibit the sale of electronics containing certain hazardous substances. However, because testing for these substances is expensive and destructive of the product, regulators cannot test all or even a significant fraction of the electronics sold. Electronics manufacturers have an incentive to test competitors? products, reveal violations to the regulator, and thus gain market share when the competitors?