The paper presents a formal analysis which incorporates returns to transportation into a Ricardian framework to predict trade patterns. The important point to be gained from this analysis is that increasing returns to transportation, coupled with appropriate distances between trading partners can be shown to reverse Ricardian predictions even when there are no international differences in tastes, technology, or factor endowments. Additional gains from trade may emerge from reductions in aggregate delivery costs owing to scale economies. (authors' abstract) / Series: Discussion Papers of the Institute for Economic Geography and GIScience

This thesis consists of three self-contained essays dealing with different aspects of macroeconomics and political Economy. The Relative Price of Investment Goods and Sectoral Contract Dependence I develop a quantitative model to explain the relationship between TFPs at the aggregate and sector levels and contracting institutions across countries. The incomplete contract enforcement induces distortions in the production process which come from the “hold up” problem between a final goods firm and its suppliers. Because investment goods sector is more contract dependent, its productivity suffers more from the distortion. In turn, countries endowed with weaker contract enforcement institutions face higher relative prices of investment goods. A Ricardian Model of the Labor Market with Directed Search I analyze how search friction affects the allocation in a Ricardian model of the labor market. The equilibrium shows that the matching pattern is partially mixed: Some tasks are only performed by skilled workers; some are only performed by unskilled workers; the remaining tasks are performed by both skilled and unskilled workers. The mixed matching pattern implies a mismatch in equilibrium. It turns out that the reason for the mismatch has its roots in search friction. In addition, I show labor market institutions have interesting implications for the unemployment rate and mismatch. A Dynamic Analysis of the Free-rider Problem I argue that special interest groups overcome their free-rider problem thanks to distorted government policy. As policy confers monopoly privileges on a group, it can also preserve and promote group’s organization. The key to sustaining the organization of the group is a dynamic incentive: when distorted policy generates rents for a group, each member of the group wish to make contributions not just to raise their rents today; they want to sustain their cooperation so that they will be able to influence policy in the future.

Ricardo est célébré pour ses théories- sa théorie de croissance qui nous enseigne le concept de la trappe à stagnation industrielle et sa théorie de l'avantage comparatif selon laquelle les différences de technologie déterminent la direction de l'échange international. Quel rôle les théories ricardiennes ont a-t-elles consacré à l'investissement direct étranger (IDE) demeure une question peu explorée. Il s'avère ainsi approprié d'étudier les implications de l'IDE et du transfert technologique vis-à-vis de ces théories. Cette thèse met l'accent sur les approches ricardiennes de croissance et de commerce international pour traiter l'IDE, le transfert technologique et le commerce international, construit et développe de nouvelles approches théoriques et prédictions ricardiennes. Des analyses économétriques sont ensuite effectuées pour tester ces prédictions.Cette thèse se compose de quatre chapitres. Deux parties qui contiennent chacune deux chapitres sont présentées. La première partie propose une revisitation et une reformulation des approches macroéconomiques de l'IDE suivant une approche ricardienne. La deuxième partie traite les relations entre l'IDE, le transfert technologique, la sophistication des exportations et les termes de l'échange des pays en développement et fournit des analyses empiriques à l'appui pour tester les prédictions ricardiennes.Le premier chapitre réexamine et généralise l'approche de l'IDE par la théorie ricardienne de croissance. Ce chapitre prolonge l'analyse d'Ozawa, met l'accent sur « les goulots d'étranglement ricardiens » et le risque de trappe à stagnation industrielle à la Ricardo-Hicks et examine les facteurs « push » expliquant l'investissement direct sortant. Les prédictions de cette approche sont ensuite testées sur un panel de pays émergents et en transition. Les résultats économétriques portant sur un panel de pays émergents et en transition confirment les prédictions théoriques de l'approche macroéconomique d'Ozawa en matière d'IDE sortant.Le second chapitre développe un modèle ricardien classique en introduisant l'IDE Nord Sud. Nous reformulons « le principe de correspondance » développé par Kojima. Nous montrons que la correspondance entre les taux de profits absolus et les avantages comparatifs explique l'émergence de l'IDE originaire des secteurs comparativement désavantagés dans les pays développés et destinés aux secteurs comparativement avantagés dans les pays en développement.Le troisième chapitre, dans sa première section, développe un modèle ricardien Nord-Sud avec transfert de technologie. Notre contribution consiste à examiner le rôle de l'élasticité de substitution entre les biens dans les conséquences du transfert technologique sur les termes de l'échange et le bien-être des pays. Les conditions d'une baisse des termes de l'échange pour le pays en développement sont explicitées, et finalement sont précisées les conditions dans lesquelles le bien être du pays en développement peut baisser à la suite de ce transfert de technologie. La seconde section prolonge l'analyse aux cas du transfert technologique via l'IDE et les licenses. Les tests empiriques montrent que les IDE entrants et le versement de royalties s'accompagnent d'une baisse des termes de l'échange pour les pays en développement.Le quatrième chapitre associe le modèle ricardien avec un continuum de biens aux travaux empiriques de Hausmann, Hwang et Rodrick (2007) et de Rodrik (2006) sur la sophistication des exportations. Un modèle empirique est développé afin d'établir les liens qui existent entre la présence des firmes étrangères et la sophistication des exportations des pays en développement. Ensuite, la question des termes de l'échange des pays en développement est mise en évidence. Les tests empiriques sur un panel de pays en développement montrent que l'augmentation de la sophistication des exportations des pays en développement s'accompagne d'une baisse de leurs termes de l'échange. / Ricardo is commonly celebrated for the theoretical achievements -his theory of growth which introduces us to the concept of trap of industrialism and his theory of comparative advantage that introduces us to the idea that technological differences across countries is the basis of international trade. What role Ricardo's theories have given to foreign direct investment (FDI) has remained a less explored issue. Thus, it is certainly relevant to study the implications of FDI and technology transfer for these theories. This thesis puts back the Ricardian growth bottleneck and the Ricardian trade approaches toward FDI and technology transfer at the forefront of analysis, builds and develops new theoretical settings and predictions. Moreover, this thesis provides new empirical applications.This thesis consists of four chapters. Two parts emerge. In the first part, we mainly revisit and reformulate the Japanese economic thought toward outward FDI, within the Ricardian context. We also implement econometric estimation to test the relevance and usefulness of this theoretical approach to outward FDI from catching-up countries. In the second part, we provide theoretical frameworks with empirical applications. We focus on the effects of technological inflows, especially via inward FDI, on the developing receiving countries and we develop new Ricardian approaches with empirical follow-up on the predictions.In chapter 1, we focus on outward FDI as an escape response to home country growth bottlenecks, which represents an important but under-explored phenomenon in the FDI literature. We review the push-factor approaches based on the pressure effect of the “Ricardian bottlenecks” to explain outward FDI. We reconsider Ozawa's macroeconomic theory of outward FDI, extend it and argue for a widespread applicability of FDI aimed at overcoming generalized “Ricardian bottlenecks”, especially, nowadays, natural resource-scarcity and the insatiable quest for energy, industrial raw materials and fuels. Our empirical findings confirm that outward FDI from emerging countries and transition economies (catching-up countries) acts as an escape response from “Ricardian bottlenecks” and strengthen the reasonableness, the usefulness and the empirical robustness of Ozawa's macroeconomic theory of FDI.In chapter 2, we reformulate Kojima's correspondence principle within Ricardian setting and point out that OFDI originating from the comparatively disadvantaged industry in the developed country and going to the comparatively advantaged industry in the developing country should follow the direction of absolute profit rates which is a reflection of the comparative advantage patterns.In chapter 3, we mainly focus, in the first section, on the welfare effect of North-South technology transfer within Ricardian setting. We single out the respective role of the relative size of both countries, the efficiency of the technology which is transferred, and the elasticity of substitution between the goods which are produced. In the second section of chapter 3, we explore what are the consequences of free technology transfer, licensing and FDI on the North-South welfare. We also provide an empirical analysis of the effect of licensing and foreign presence on the developing countries' terms of trade. We find that inward FDI and royalties' payment deteriorate the terms of trade of the developing and emerging countries.In chapter 4, we combine an extended continuum Ricardian trade setting which rank sophistication of exports by their technology intensity with the new advanced wave of empirical literature on export sophistication. Using data from the developing and emerging countries, we test the core theoretical prediction that foreign involvement and export penetration facilitate technological progress and upgrades export sophistication of a country by leading it to expand the range of goods that it produces toward sectors with rising productivity. In our next step, we bring the debate on the deterioration of the developing countries' terms of trade back into the limelight. Importantly, we show that despite the increase in their export sophistication, the developing countries continue to face terms of trade deterioration.