The paper applies a gravity model to 1980-1996 annual non-fuel imports data for 58 countries to quantify the effects of recently created or revamped PTAs on trade. We modify the usual gravity equation to identify separate effects of PTAs on intra-bloc trade, members' total imports and their...

This paper uses a schematic computable model of the iron and steel sectors in the European Community (EC) and Eastern Europe to explore the effects of trade policies on those sectors. In particular it explores the partial opening of EC markets to Eastern producers. Following a discussion of...

We present a simple computable model of EC footwear production and trade coupled with a rudimentary production model for Eastern Europe. We simulate the liberalization of EC footwear imports from Eastern Europe as planned under the so-called Europe Agreements. We find that if Eastern Europe can...

This paper sees countertrade as a means by which the PCPEs (previously centrally planned economies) and LDCs extract some of the monopoly profits from firms in OECD countries to subsidize their exports. Viewed in this way, countertrade is an exchange of market entry for marketing assistance in...

This paper reviews key recent literature on the effects of trade liberalisation on poverty in developing countries and asks whether our knowledge has changed significantly over a decade. The conclusion that liberalisation generally boosts income and thus reduces poverty has not changed; some...

Starting with the international debt crisis in the early 1980s, the volume of international barter trade increased substantially. This paper examines how barter can help highly indebted countries to finance imports if they cannot use standard credit arrangements. We argue that payment in goods...

This paper fits a gravity model to the trade of 76 market economies. It then applies the model to data on East European economies to estimate what their trading potential might have been, had behaved like market economies in the mid-1980s. At existing levels of national income, the...

A countertrade contract ties an export to an import. Usually, countertrade is seen as a form of bilateralism and reciprocity and thus as an inefficient form of international exchange. In this paper we argue that there are circumstances where the tying of two technologically unrelated trade flows...

The theoretical literature follows two different approaches to explain the endogenous formation of a Customs Union (CU). The first one explains CU formation through the willingness of integrating partners to exploit terms-of-trade effects. Indeed, as the union forms, the 'domestic market' gets...

The welfare effects of PTAs are most directly linked to changes in trade prices, i.e., the terms of trade. This paper employs a simple strategic pricing game in segmented markets to measure the effects of MERCOSUR on the pricing of 'non-member' exports to the region. Working with detailed data...