The book explores the impact of transport costs on trade in Latin America and the Caribbean, and argues that transport costs have assumed an unprecedented strategic importance to the region. The region can no longer rely solely on trade agreements, proximity, labor costs and an abundant supply...

Despite progress in communication technologies, lack of information still severely handicaps companies seeking to operate in international markets. Furthermore, the investments that these companies must make to gather the information required to trade with foreign markets may yield reduced...

Our knowledge of the trade effects of domestic infrastructure is very limited. The reason is twofold. First, data needed to examine these effects are not readily available. Second, identifying such effects requires properly addressing potential endogeneity problems affecting the relationship...

O surgimento das cadeias globais de valor (CGVs) está permitindo que os países se industrializem muito mais rapidamente ao se inserirem em redes internacionais de produção em vez de construírem cadeias produtivas completas dentro do próprio país. Além de oferecer oportunidades para...

This presentation argues that trade policy in the region has been too focused on removing tariffs, to the detriment of trade facilitation, particularly in transportation. It explores the impact of transport costs on trade in Latin America and the Caribbean, and argues that transport costs have...

This paper provides evidence on the channels through which export promotion institutions affect bilateral trade using a sample of Latin American and Caribbean countries over the period 1995-2004. We find that these institutions have a larger impact on the extensive margin of exports, especially...

Do all exporters benefit the same from export promotion programs? Surprisingly, not matter how obvious this question may a priori be when thinking of the effectiveness of these programs there is virtually no empirical evidence on how they affect export performance in different parts of the...

Export promotion agencies provide exporters with a broad range of services, going from counseling to sponsoring their participation in international trade missions and fairs. These services may have heterogeneous effects and thus contribute differently to achieve the goals of these...

How effective are export promotion activities in developing countries? What are the channels through which export promotion affects firms' exports, the intensive margin or the extensive margin? Empirical evidence in this respect is scarce. We aim at filling this gap in the literature by...

Information problems involved in trading differentiated goods are a priori acuter than those associated with trading more homogeneous products. The impact of export promotion activities intending to address these problems can be therefore expected to differ across goods with different degree of...