Trade economists traditionally study the effect of lower variable trade costs. While increasingly important politically, technical barriers to trade (TBTs) have received less attention. Viewing TBTs as fixed regulatory costs related to the entry into export markets, we use a model with...

The Schengen Agreement has guaranteed unchecked travel across internal EU borders since 1995. Has it also facilitated trade flows? Our econometric analysis suggests that Schengen has boosted trade by 3% on average (equivalent to a drop in tariffs by 0.7 percentage points). Goods trade is more...

The sheer size of the EU and US economies combined suggests substantial economic benefits from eliminating tariffs, reducing the costs of regulatory divergence, and deepening cooperation. Estimating these gains is difficult: uncertainty concerning modelling choices, data, and scenarios looms...

The economic situation in the euro area continues to be weak. In the course of 2003, real GDP has only stagnated. Several factors prevented the expected recovery to materialize. Last year’s collapse of stock prices dampened activity, so did the high oil price. In addition, the uncertainty in...

The currently negotiated Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership between the EU and the United States of America will most likely affect countries, such as Norway which have close ties to the European production networks. Based on a CGE model, developed at the ifo institute, we...

The European Union is the world’s largest and deepest free trade zone. Amongst its members, it has abolished tariffs and lowered non-tariff barriers. This has led to trade creation within Europe and to trade diversion between EU countries and outsiders. The Transatlantic Trade and Investment...

The proposed Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) between the European Union and the United States of America would be the largest preferential trade agreement in the world. Encompassing almost half of world GDP, it will have strong economic effects on Germany. In this paper, we...