Using a detailed data set at the tariff line level, we find an emulator effect of multilateralism on subsequent regional trade agreements involving the US. We exploit the variation in the frequency with which the US has granted immediate duty free access (IDA) to its Free Trade Area partners...

This paper investigates the sources and size of trade barriers at the industry level. We derive a micro-founded measure of industry-specific bilateral trade integration that has an in-built control for time-varying multilateral resistance. This trade integration measure is consistent with a...

Barriers to international trade are known to be large but because of data limitations it is hard to measure them directly for a large number of countries over many years. To address this problem, I derive a micro-founded measure of bilateral trade costs that indirectly infers trade frictions...

Many studies have found that international borders represent large barriers to trade. But how do international borders compare to domestic border barriers? We investigate international and domestic border barriers in a unified framework. We consider a data set of exports from individual US...

This paper derives a micro-founded gravity equation based on a translog demand system that allows for flexible substitution patterns across goods. In contrast to the standard CES-based gravity equation, translog gravity generates an endogenous trade cost elasticity. Trade is more sensitive to...

Although economists have long been aware of Jensen's inequality, many econometric applications have neglected an important implication of it: the standard practice of interpreting the parameters of log-linearized models estimated by ordinary least squares as elasticities can be highly misleading...

In this article, we review the literature on the measurement of trade costs in international trade with a special emphasis on nontariff measures and in particular on standards and technical regulations. We distinguish ‘direct’ from ‘indirect’ approaches. The direct approach collects...

We study the relationship between participation in free trade agreements (FTAs) and the sustainability of democracy. Our model shows that FTAs can critically reduce the incentive of authoritarian groups to seek power by destroying protectionist rents, thus making democracies last longer. This...

European regions have experienced a polarisation of their unemployment rates between 1986 and 1996, as regions with intermediate rates have been driven by changes in regional employment, only partly offset by labour force changes. Regions'' outcomes have closely followed those of neighbouring...

Using the idea that the division of labor is limited not only by the extent of the market but also by its heterogeneity, it is proposed in this paper that ''globalisation'' is redrawing the lines of division within and between countries. Our model builds on the concept of productive systems. Our...