Preferential liberalization of trade in services is a central feature of the new regionalism. "GATS-Plus" and "GATS-Minus" have become the distinctive characteristics of the service RTAs and this paper aims to investigate and distinguish the different effect of the "GATS-Plus" and "GATS-Minus"...

This paper studies empirically the effects of financial crises on international trade. The major findings are that banking crises had a negative impact on imports but a positive impact on exports in the short term, whereas currency crises decreased imports in the short term and stimulated...

This study quantifies the impact of traditional and new age' provisions of preferential trading arrangements (PTAs) on merchandise trade and investment. It does so by estimating gravity models of bilateral trade and investment. It finds that recent and some past PTAs are not as benign as some...

Gravity-based cross-sectional evidence indicates that currency unions stimulate trade; cross-sectional evidence indicates that trade stimulates output. This paper estimates the effect that currency union has, via trade, on output per capita. We use economic and geographic data for over 200...

The gravity model has been widely used to infer substantial trade flow effects of institutions such as customs unions and exchange rate mechanisms. McCallum [1995] found that the US-Canada border led to trade between provinces that is a factor 22 (2,200%) times trade between states and...

Recent studies suggest that intranational trade is "excessive' compared to international trade. An intuitive explanation for this home bias is provided by national trade barriers. A dataset of trade between US states, however, reveals that home bias extends to subnational units. The data suggest...

I propose a network/search view of international trade in differentiated products. I present evidence that supports the view that proximity and common language/colonial ties are more important for differentiated products than for products traded on organized exchanges in matching international...

This paper investigates the theory and evidence that history plays a role in shaping the direction of international trade. Because there are reasons to anticipate a positive correlation between the predominant direction of trade flows in the past and membership in preferential arrangements in...