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In this paper, we complement the empirical evidence on the productivity sorting literature by considering different modes of import combined with different modes of export. Using the data of six Latin American countries, we test the first-order stochastic dominance to evaluate the Total Factor Productivity (TFP) differences among eight categories of traders. Our main result shows that, rather than the side, it is the mode of trade that matters. We show that the most productive firms choose to trade directly. In addition, firms that are both importers and exporters are more productive than firms active just on one side of the international market. Provided that the mode of trade is the same, firms that just import do not differ from those that just export. Similarly, we did not find a significant productivity difference between firms trading directly on one of the two trade sides and indirectly on the other. Thus, we concluded that direct two-way traders have the highest TFP, followed by direct one-way traders and then mixed two-way traders, indirect two-way traders, and, finally, indirect one-way traders.

This paper explores the effects of product innovation, process innovation and R&D expenditure on job creation, job destruction and churning. The results indicate that product innovation tends to amplify both job creation and destruction, while R&D tends to work in the opposite direction. We also find that churning increases as firms engage in R&D activities, while it decreases when firms introduce product and/or process innovations.

This paper examines the implications of temporary migration episodes for two cohorts of Italian Ph.D.s. Special attention is given to the duration of experience abroad, its contribution to earned wages and the selectivity of returnees. After controlling for the endogeneity of both the migration decision and the length of stay abroad, we find positive returns to longer periods abroad and negative returns to shorter periods. Returnees are also found to be positively self-selected. The results are confirmed in several robustness and sensitivity checks.

This paper studies firms’ decisions to export and invest in RD (ii) RD and (iii) pure exports are not a driver of employment growth and labor flows.

The patents power is threefold: first, they are important to state the property right's appropriability of an invention; second, they are necessary in order to secure financing for starting a new venture; third, they are fundamental in order to recoup the positive R&D cost investment. The main difficulty, in preventing innovation's unauthorized uses, is in the establishment of ranges and contexts about patents applicability. Noting the legal system's imperfections, we are in a position to consider an economy with two levels of competition under different market structures: the inter-sector monopolistic competition and the intra-sector Cournot oligopoly. The explicit consideration of strategic interaction in a model of endogenous growth produces interesting results. Considering the sectorial market share as the indicator of patent system enforcement, I find that growth takes place, if and only if, there are some property rights of private knowledge developed by R&D activities. In turn, the perfectionism in the patent system means a low degree of competition among firms. Its influence on the growth rate goes in a single unambiguous direction. When the market is highly competitive few resources are available for R&D, so the growth rate goes down.

This paper investigates on price competition in the Hotelling location model with linear transportation costs when consumer preferences are affected by the number of consumers shopping at the same store. A consumption externality permits to consider the imitation and the congestion effects which are opposite forces at work. The coexistence of both effects confers new validity to the principle of minimum differentiation as it was in the original Hotelling model. I show that firms do not need to set apart in order to earn higher profits. The results show firms endogenously choose to locate in the center of the interval sharing the market with positive prices.

This paper provides the Nash equilibrium under homogeneous duopoly a la Bertrand. The optimal consumers' behaviour is obtained assuming a specific externality in the utility function. This externality permits to consider at the same time, and not alternatively, the imitation and the crowd effect, which are opposite force at work. The result gives prices over marginal cost and the strong sensibility of preferences to the crowd effect.