The impact of protection on economic growth is one of the traditional issues in economic history, which has enjoyed a revival in recent times, with the publication of a number of comparative quantitative papers. They all share a common weakness: they measure protection with the ratio of custom...

In this paper, we analyze the effect of reducing import tariffs on intermediate inputs and final goods on the wage skill premium within firms in Indonesia – a country with a high share of unskilled workers. We present a new finding that reducing input tariffs reduces the wage skill premium...

Timeliness has gained growing importance in international trade. This paper provides empirical evidence on the significant cost of time in trade by exploiting the quasi-experimental nature of the European Union (EU) enlargement in 2004. It applies a difference-in-difference-in-differences...

The focus of trade policy has shifted in recent years from economy-wide reductions in tariffs and trade restrictions towards targeted interventions to facilitate trade and promote exports. Most of these latter interventions are based on the new mantra of "aid-for-trade" rather than on hard...

We evaluate the impact of the export promotion program delivered by the Canadian Trade Commissioner Service on various dimensions of export performance. Over the 1999-2006 time period we study, Canadian firms successfully diversified their exports to destinations beyond the United States and...

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...

This study documents some unintended consequences of the WTO membership by providing evidence on displacement of tariff evasion driven by the WTO accession process. We argue that implementation of Article VII of the GATT resulted in limiting discretion of customs officials in terms of assessing...

Historically, earnings from farming in many developing countries have been depressed by a pro-urban bias in own-country policies, as well as by governments of richer countries favouring their farmers with import barriers and subsidies. Both sets of policies reduced global economic welfare and...

We assess the impact of U.S. trade policy uncertainty (TPU) toward China in a tractable general equilibrium framework with heterogeneous firms. We show that increased TPU reduces investment in export entry and technology upgrading, which in turn reduces trade flows and real income for consumers....

This paper evaluates the effects of the FAMEX export promotion program in Tunisia on the performance of beneficiary firms. While most studies assess only the short-term impact of such programs, we consider also the longer-term impact. Estimates suggest that beneficiaries initially saw both...