If trade barriers are managed by inefficient institutions, trade liberalization can lead to greater-than-expected gains. We examine Chinese textile and clothing exports before and after the elimination of externally imposed export quotas. Both the surge in export volume and the decline in export...

Using the dismantling of the Multi-fibre Arrangement quotas on Chinese textile products in conjunction with China's accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO), within firms adjustments to intensified low-wage competition is analyzed. Employing Danish employer-employee matched data covering...

Despite the fact that many modern preferential trade agreements include commitments to foreign investors in imperfectly competitive services sectors, the literature has not established conditions under which these agreements are beneficial or harmful. The authors fill that void by developing a...

This paper presents new estimates of policy-induced trade costs in five services sectors for 46 countries. Results demonstrate the significant untapped economic potential of multilateral, plurilateral, and unilateral services trade liberalisation. Even though services trade has more than tripled...

Theoretical and empirical studies on multi-product firms have shown that firms adjust their product mix in response to trade liberalisation. This paper uses the South African Revenue Service (SARS) and National Treasury (NT) firm-level panel to assess the response of South African firms to trade...

In this paper the authors develop an innovative 21 sector computable general equilibrium model of Armenia to assess the impact on Armenia of a Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Agreement (DCFTA) with the EU, as well as further regional or multilateral trade policy commitments. They find that a...

We adopt the Stigler–Peltzman model of policy-making as developed by Hillman for application to the politics of international trade, in which the government is represented by a political support function trading-off the industry rents stemming from protection against the losses accruing to the...

We provide a synthesis of the theoretical models that study the use of escape clauses, also known as safeguards, in multilateral and preferential trade agreements. We consider models that explain this type of flexibility based on economic efficiency, political economy shocks, and...

Are product standards protectionism in disguise? This paper estimates the costs of non- compliance with U.S. product standards, using a new database on U.S. import refusals from 2002 to 2012. We find that import refusals significantly decrease exports to the United States. This trade reducing...

This chapter surveys empirically the broad features of trade policy in goods for 31 major economies that collectively represented 83% of the world's population and 91% of the world's GDP in 2013. We address five questions: Do some countries have more liberal trading regimes than others? Within...