Almost all participants in free trade agreements (FTAs) exclude at least a few products or sectors from complete tariff removal on the exports of their FTA partners. The positive tariffs that remain within an FTA are often the highest tariffs that the countries apply on an MFN basis. It seems...

This paper assesses the evidence regarding the effects of multinational production on wages and working conditions in developing countries. It is motivated by recent controversies concerning whether multinational firms in developing countries exploit workers by paying low wages and subjecting...

This paper derives bilateral trade from two cases of the Heckscher-Ohlin Model, both also representing a variety of other models as well. First is frictionless trade, in which the absence of all impediments to trade in homogeneous products causes producers and consumers to be indifferent among...

The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted the world economy in 2020. As of December 23, 2020 the World Health Organization (WHO) reports more than 76 million confirmed cases of COVID-19 and over 1.7 million deaths worldwide. At the intersection of the COVID-19 pandemic and the global economy, numerous...

In this paper I argue that profit-maximizing firms, even though they contribute to social welfare when they compete in the market, may not do so when they influence the political process. In particular, I suggest, through several examples from both the real world and from economic theory, that...

This paper documents the presence of "sensitive sectors" in Free Trade Agreements, defined as sectors for which the within-FTA tariffs remain positive. The paper includes some brief theoretical discussion of the welfare implications of these, but the main emphasis is on reporting two measures of...

Digital trade takes a variety of forms, several of which are examined here with regard to whether they can be explained by comparative advantage. The five forms of digital trade considered are 1) physical products that are advertised, ordered, and/or paid for digitally, but transported by normal...