Countries in Eastern and Central Europe that are likely to join the European Union will eventually also join the European Monetary Union. The process of accession will entail a transition period at the end of which it is certain that the domestic currency will be replaced by the Euro. This paper...

The paper investigates how Preferential Trade Agreements (PTAs) affect the range of goods exported by a nation. We use the Melitz model and highly dis-aggregated data on Euro-Mediterranean trade to measure the effect of preferential trade liberalization on the range of traded products. By...

The paper explains why institutions matter for a deep integration process, as illustrated by the liberalization of Non-Tariff Barriers (NTBs) in Europe. We argue that deep trade liberalization requires supranational institutions of deeper integration that permit enforcement, surveillance, and...

This paper looks at the measures taken by East Asian countries since the 1997-8 crisis to reduce the odds of a new crisis. It finds that odds are low, but far from zero. Much progress has been done to deal with the vulnerabilities that have been identified so far, but some remain. The massive...

Despite world-wide bloc economies after the Depression, Japan had a tight relationship with the British Commonwealth and created tight connections with the Sterling and the Gold blocs in the late 1930s. The world-wide bloc economies did not isolate Japan.

We study the incidence of offshoring, or trade in tasks, on firms' productivity and on manufacturing employment in a standard economic-geography model with iceberg trade costs and a continuum of tasks. In a two-countries world where one country has a Hick's neutral technological edge over the...

This paper creates a new index (“index of bilateral trade relation”) to quantitatively evaluate the degree of regional economic integration based on countries’ de facto bilateral trade relations. It concludes that a fundamental arrangement of East Asian regionalism should involve at least...

This paper presents a baseline model that illustrates the implications of Mutual Recognition Agreements (MRAs) for excluded nations. The model shows that MRAs can harm third country exports because of a trade-diversion effect. We use highly disaggregated trade data from developed and developing...

Debt sustainability is an essential attribute of good macroeconomic policies but its precise definition is elusive and its assessment is even more challenging. The IMF has developed a sophisticated approach but it must be recognized that, because the future is unknown, any debt sustainability...