Economists tend to exalt the virtues of free international trade, while politicians are more skeptical. This paper suggests that this is the case because politicians mainly worry about the income distribution effects of trade liberalization, while economists focus on efficiency. Using textbook...

Biofuels are promoted by politics in more and more countries worldwide. This is being justified by positive effects on the climate, energy, and agricultural policy. The paper describes the current and future markets for biofuels and the existing biofuel programs in single countries. It analyzes...

We carry out a detailed sensitivity analysis of border carbon adjustment (rates) by applying a global Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) GTAP7-based model. We find different incentives for the regions in the climate coalition to raise carbon-based border tax rates (BTAX) above the standard...

In this paper, we present a standard quality ladders endogenous growth model with one significant new assumption, that it takes time for firms to learn how to export. We show that this model without Melitz-type assumptions can account for all the evidence that the Melitz (2003) model was...

This paper develops an efficiency theory of contingent trade policies. We model the competition for a domestic market between one domestic and one foreign firm as a pricing game under incomplete information about production costs. The cost distributions are asymmetric because the foreign firm...

This paper explores the role of pooled-producer, e.g. private label, trade intermediation in shaping the range and diversity of exports. Direct sales maintain a firm's unique product characteristics (`brand equity'), whereas trade through an intermediary can take two forms — either a...

We develop a new model of trade in which educational institutions drive comparative advantage and determine the distribution of human capital within and across countries. Our framework exploits a multiplicity of sectors and the continuous support of human capital choices to demonstrate that...

Gains from productivity and knowledge transmission arising from the presence of foreign firms has received a good deal of empirical attention, but micro-foundations for this mechanism are weak . Here we focus on production by foreign experts who may train domestic unskilled workers who work with...

In this paper, we revisit the empirical evidence on the relationship between trade openness and long-run economic growth over the sample period 1960-2000. In contrast to previous studies focusing mainly on the period 1970-1990, this paper reassesses the openness-growth nexus over a much longer...

This paper develops three major themes. First, the atmosphere of gloom around the multilateral trading system due to dim prospects of a successful conclusion of the Doha Round notwithstanding, global trade regime remains open and the institution in charge of it, the World Trade Organization, is...