The effects of Regional Trade Agreements (RTAs) are disputed. In this paper, we assess these effects using capital market data and an event-study approach, using a daily data set covering a thousand announcements spanning over eighty economies and a hundred RTAs over twenty recent years. We...

I examine the hypothesis that membership in the World Trade Organization (WTO) and its predecessor the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) has increased the stability and predictability of trade flows. I use a large dataset covering annual bilateral trade flows between over 175...

One reason why countries service their external debts is the fear that default might lead to shrinkage of international trade. If so, then creditors should systematically lend more to countries with which they share closer trade links. We develop a simple theoretical model to capture this...

As communication costs fall, foreign embassies and consulates have lost much of their role in decision-making and information-gathering. Accordingly, foreign services are increasingly marketing themselves as agents of export promotion. I investigate whether exports are in fact systematically...

We use a quinquennial data set covering 87 countries between 1975 and 2005 to investigate the relationship between fertility and the real effective exchange rate. Theoretically a country experiencing a decline in its fertility rate can be expected to have higher savings, lower investment, a...

This paper studies the characteristics of departures from monetary unions. During the post-war period, almost seventy distinct countries or territories have left a currency union, while over sixty have remained continuously in currency unions. I compare countries leaving currency unions to those...