Plants and productivity in international trade

We reconcile trade theory with plant-level export behavior, extending the Ricardian model to accommodate many countries, geographic barriers, and imperfect com-petition. Our model captures qualitatively basic facts about U.S. plants: (i) pro-ductivity dispersion, (ii) higher productivity among exporters, (iii) the small fraction who export, (iv) the small fraction earned from exports among exporting plants, and (v) the size advantage of exporters. Fitting the model to bilateral trade among the United States and 46 major trade partners, we examine the impact of globalization and dollar appreciation on productivity, plant entry and exit, and labor turnover in U.S. manufacturing. (JEL F11, F17, O33) A new empirical literature has emerged that examines international trade at the level of in-dividual producers. Bernard and Jensen (1995, 1999a), Sofronis Clerides et al. (1998), and Bee Yan Aw et al. (2000), among others, have un-covered stylized facts about the behavior an