The paper investigates the patterns of variations in Indian industrial performance at both industry and state levels. Applying stochastic frontier analysis to an unbalanced panel of 15 Indian states, 22 industries at the 2-digit level, and an 11-year period spanning 1992-2002; the paper estimates,...

This paper primarily investigates the issue of labour welfare in Indian industries, and seeks to make a contribution to the debate on labour reforms currently underway in India. It investigates the relative importance of technical change, elasticities of substitution, and labour regulations for...

This paper studies the evolution of the competitive structure of the two-wheeler industry in India. The evolution of the industry's competitive structure is traced using Kendall’s Index of Rank Concordance and the Evans-Karras test of convergence. The industry seems to be characterized by...

The sending of remittances is a decentralised decision of migrant workers, nevertheless it has its macroeconomic implication in providing insurance against domestic output shocks in the recipient economies – a phenomenon known in literature as risk sharing. Using a large sample of 86...

We use a unique panel of retail prices spanning 123 cities in 79 countries from 1990 to 2005, to uncover six novel properties of long-run international price dispersion. First, at the PPP level, virtually all (91.6%) of price dispersion is attributed to service-sector wages, consistent with a...

This paper offers an empirical analysis of the proposal by some developing countries for an agricultural Special Safeguard Mechanism (SSM) in the World Trade Organization. It draws on political economy and market theory to demonstrate that the loss-averting domestic producer benefits that...

There is a strong presumption among economists that domestic reforms are promoted by regionalism. Yet strong empirical evidence for this proposition is lacking. The purpose of the paper is to examine in some detail both the theoretical arguments and empirical evidence on this issue, drawing on...

This paper examines the impact of the Australia-Thailand free trade agreement (TAFTA) on bilateral trade between the two countries, paying attention to the implications of rules of origins (RoO) and the utilization of tariff preferences. It is found that trade has expanded faster following TAFTA...

This paper examines patterns and determinants of trade among developing countries (South-South trade), with emphasis on the role of production sharing in global economic integration of the Southern economies. It begins with an analytical narrative of the emerging trends and patterns of...

By how much did the cost of governmental barriers to trade change over the 20th century, and how might they change by the middle of the 21st century? This paper addresses that question by first reviewing evidence on the changing extent of global trade restrictions since 1900, particularly for...