International trade and intranational geography: theory and empirical applications on firm data.

Summary This thesis examines two aspects of the relationship between international trade and intranational geography. The first part analyzes the consequences of international openness on the spatial distribution of productive activities within countries. The first chapter develops a three-region model. It is shown that when domestic regions have a locational advantage or disadvantage with respect to foreign markets, trade integration can either favor the agglomeration of production in the border region or, on the contrary, reinforce the concentration of production in remote regions. The second chapter contains an empirical application of this prediction to Central and Eastern European countries. The second part of the thesis analyzes how the location of production within a country can influence its export performance. The last three chapters use firm export data available from INSEE. Chapter 3 contributes to the literature on extensive and intensive trade margins, and shows that intranational transaction costs affect both the number of exporting firms and the volume exported per firm. Chapter 4 shows the presence of export spillovers, emphasizing their country- and sector-specific nature. Chapter 5 examines the impact of foreign immigrants on trade at the firm level. The presence of foreign immigrants in a French department increases the probability that firms will start exporting to the immigrants' country of origin.