The primary purpose of this paper is to seek empirical answers to the above question. Using a highly disaggregated bilateral trade flows at HS 6 digit level for African countries for a period 1995-2009 and a conditional logit technique, I find 3 main empirical results. First, intra-Africa...

This paper focuses on the observed empirical relationship between fiscal rules and budget deficits, and examines whether this correlation is driven by an omitted variable, namely voter preferences. We make use of two different estimation methods to capture voter preferences in a panel of Swiss...

If women have different economic preferences than men, then female economic and political empowerment is likely to change policy and household decisions, and in turn macroeconomic outcomes. We test the hypothesis that female enfranchisement leads to lower government budget deficits due gender...

How do firms' sales interact across markets? Are foreign and domestic sales complements or substitutes? Using a large French firm-level database that combine balance-sheet and product-destination-specific export information over the period 1995-2001, we study the interconnections between exports...

This paper develops an open economy firm-heterogeneous model where the combination of market rigidities and exchange rate uncertainty acts like a barrier to trade and modifies a firm's optimal choice in terms of production and pricing. The existence of price and labour rigidities, coupled with...

The aim of this paper is to explore the patterns of trade duration across regions and to identify its determinants. Using an extended Cox model, we evaluate the effects of country and product characteristics, as well as of trade cost variables on the duration of trade relationships from 96...

In this paper we combine the tariff evasion analysis of Fisman and Wei (2004) with Rauch and Trindade’s (2002) study of Chinese trade networks. Chinese networks are known to act as trade catalysts by enforcing contracts and providing market information. As tariff evasion occurs outside the...

This paper analyses the impact of preference erosion on Bangladesh’s clothing industry coming from both the ATC quotas phasing-out and the reduction on MFN tariffs under NAMA negotiations. First, it undertakes a numerical exercise to estimate the effects of tariffs reduction in the US and the...

If the Euro has boosted intra Euro-Area trade, what exactly in the new currency is responsible for such an effect? Most explanations focus on a decrease in exchange rate volatility or in transaction costs, receiving mixed empirical support. After briefly surveying the relevant literature, this...

This paper addresses the impact of Multilateral Trade Liberalisation (MTL) on the preferential tariffs granted by the United States. For a given MFN tariff, we model the preferential tariff with a simple linear functional form. We take MTL of the US as known to the world by the end of Uruguay...