The tremendous importance of small and medium-sized enterprises within the German economy is repeatedly stressed in policy discussions. That makes the disproportionately low level of involvement by SMEs in the Asian growth region stand out all the more prominently. What are the factors...

Donor agencies invest considerable financial and human resources to evaluate the outcome of their development activities. To derive institutional conditions conducive to an efficient use of these resources, we develop a multi-level principal-agent model focusing on the various interests of the...

While theoretical models suggest that trade is likely to increase productivity and income levels, the empirical evidence is rather mixed. For some countries, trade has a strong impact on growth, whereas for other countries there is no or even a negative linkage. We examine one likely...

For decades now, trade assistance has been one of the traditional components in Germany's programme of development cooperation (DC) (see section 2.4). On a multilateral level, support has been provided to the World Trade Organization (WTO), the International Trade Centre (ITC) and the Joint...