We investigate how managers help firms grow by entering a new export market. We conduct an event study on the decision to export to Angola using data on Portuguese firms and workers. We evaluate the impact of the presence of managers with experience in exporting to the Angolan market on a firm’s entry success in the aftermath of an exogenous shock: the sudden end of the Angolan civil war. We show that the presence of managers doubles the probability of a firm entering the market. We do not find any significant impact on the intensive margin of exports.

We build a multicountry dynamic general equilibrium model to study the economic effects of the 2004 enlargement of the European Union. In our model, trade is costly and households of different skills and nationalities face costly forward-looking migration decisions. We exploit the timing of migration policy changes to identify the changes in migration costs. We find that the changes in migration and trade policy resulted in aggregate welfare gains but with heterogeneous effects across skill groups. We study the interaction between trade and migration policies and highlight the importance of trade for quantifying the welfare and migration effects of labor market integration.