We find robust evidence of a positive and significant relationship between the volumes of traffic and the degree of liberalization of the aviation market. An increase in the degree of liberalization from the 25th percentile to the 75th percentile increases traffic volumes between countries...

In this paper we provide a description of how food safety related scientific evidence is generated and how it is used in the context of risk assessment for international standard-setting at CODEX and in WTO trade disputes. In particular, we discuss the processes leading to policy conclusions on...

We show that exposure to country specific shocks has a positive and significant impact on GDP volatility. In particular, we find that the degree to which the cycles of different trading partners are correlated is more important in explaining exporters’ GDP volatility than the volatility of...

This paper draws from different approaches within the field of international political economy to try to explain why governments undertook different levels of market access commitments under the WTO's General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS). The argument, which is supported by empirical...

The concept of "like services and service suppliers" used in the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) is still very much uncharted territory. The few dispute cases involving national treatment and most-favoured-nation treatment claims under the GATS are vague concerning the criteria...

This paper attempts to fill a gap in the trade literature by providing a comprehensive overview of services liberalization commitments in the new generation of preferential trade agreements (PTAs) as compared to prevailing GATS commitments and Doha Round offers. By developing a new database, the...

This paper analyses the possible gains from regional and multilateral liberalization of financial services trade for African countries taking into account the implications of such liberalization for financial regulation and capital account liberalization. It also describes existing efforts to...

In this paper we examine the impact of major disasters on international trade flows using a gravity model. Our panel data consists of more than 170 countries for the years 1962-2004 yielding approximately 300,000 observations. We find that the driving forces determining the impact of such events...

Preferential trade agreements (PTAs) on services have proliferated since 2000. This working paper briefly presents the expansion of the dataset initially developed in Marchetti and Roy (2008). The data permits to assess the extent to which market access commitments undertaken by WTO Members in...

Using SPS measures obtained from the SPS Information Management System of the WTO and controlling for zero trade flows, we find that SPS concerns reduce the probability of trade in agricultural and food products consistently. However, the amount of trade is positively affected by SPS measures...