is of course no guarantee that if we work really hard we will definitely achieve great success, but at least we will have a chance. if we don ’ t even give it a try, there is no hope. it does not matter which way you may wish to go as long as you are fully aware that you do have a choice. that choice, which will shape your careers and your whole life, is yours and yours alone. thank you.

for european and north american companies. these firms must therefore take up many challenges in order to safeguard their competitive edge, both on their domestic markets and their foreign outlets. at the same time, the emerging countries are large in size and exhibit strong economic growth, too. therefore, they also offer many opportunities for firms that are able to seize them. all these developments linked to the increasing globalisation of the economy obviously raise a good many questions. these include the determinants of trade flows, strategies enabling companies to gain a foothold in external markets, or the employment consequences of importing goods from low - cost countries. these issues have been extensively discussed in both the theoretical and empirical economic literature. since the mid - nineties, a growing segment of this literature has been paying particular attention to the microeconomic determinants of international trade and foreign investment. researchers have made intensive use of firm - level databases specific to different countries that have gradually become available for them. this microeconomic approach has brought an important contribution to our understanding of the causes and consequences of the globalisation, mainly because firm - level data make it possible to point up things that do not show up in aggregate statistics. if only one example had to be given, it would of course be the fact that trade is concentrated among a few firms, which are in a better position than the others to bear the high costs associated with entering foreign markets. indeed, within each industry, firms of different sizes, with different performances, and with different behaviour in terms of innovation and international involvement, operate alongside each other. it is important to take this heterogeneity into consideration to understand the dynamics of foreign trade. this heterogeneity also has very important implications for economic policy, in the sense that it helps to identify two levers that are likely to be activated as a means of boosting firms ’ international involvement. the first consists of encouraging their expansion – and especially that of smes – so as to give them the best preparation to go international, including policies designed to foster their research and development efforts. the second lever concerns measures aimed at cutting the costs of entering foreign markets, for instance by helping firms to find potential new customers there or by removing administrative and regulatory barriers. another undeniable advantage of the microeconomic approach is that it helps bring out the scale of reallocation of production factors from the weakest - performing firms towards those whose business is more flourishing. among other things, this enables economists to gain a