Despite its several inherent weaknesses, Doing Business compiled by the World Bank is still the most widely used assessment of the trade facilitation status among developing country policymakers as well as economists. In this paper, we suggest that the use of trade costs calculated based on...

This paper highlights the large contribution of services to the Brazilian economy and the under-exploited potential of services to sustain productivity gains and international competitiveness. The areas with the largest potential for regulatory reform include improvements in the general business...

Deepening regional integration within the Southern African Development Community (SADC) will raise potential growth for all member countries. Integrated economies will increase market size, trade opportunities and improve resource allocation across member countries. Key pillars of functioning...

Regulations and enforcement decisions that at first appear to have only a domestic impact can have substantial spillover effects on other nations' economies. Experience has shown time and again that there is no reason to expect that these effects are confined to jurisdictions at the same level...

We study the relationship between participation in free trade agreements (FTAs) and the sustainability of democracy. Our model shows that FTAs can critically reduce the incentive of authoritarian groups to seek power by destroying protectionist rents, thus making democracies last longer. This...

Using the "trilemma indexes" developed by Aizenman et al. (2008) that measure the extent of achievement in each of the three policy goals in the trilemma--monetary independence, exchange rate stability, and financial openness--we examine how policy configurations affect macroeconomic...