This Paper analyses the reasons why countries may pursue different labeling policies in autarky and how this affects countries’ welfare in the context of international trade. In an asymmetric information environment where producers know the quality of the goods they are selling and consumers...

Given the sluggish progress in multilateral trade negotiations Southern and Eastern African negotiators are likely to focus their attention on the negotiations of Economic Partnership Agreements with the European Union. This paper analyses possible advantages and disadvantages for ACP countries...

We incorporate equilibrium unemployment due to imperfect matching into a model of trade in intermediate inputs (Ethier (1982)). Firms are assumed to be price takers and their size is given by technology. Firms enter the market as long as expected profits cover the search cost they incur...

This paper gives insights into the possible trade creating effects of service trade liberalization via Mode 4. In particular we expect that temporary movements of persons, like permanent movements, have the potential to reduce transaction costs for merchandise trade between home and host...

Using a dataset of 104 countries over a period from 1966 to 2004, this paper analyses the relevance of country specific shocks for income volatility in open economies. We show that exposure to country specific shocks has a positive and significant impact on GDP volatility. In particular, we find...

This Paper analyses to which extent domestic institutions affect trade flows. We use two complementary approaches, one focusing on the size of total trade flows and one focusing on bilateral trade patterns (gravity equation). We also control for two other domestic policy variables: trade policy...