Ineffective institutions increase transaction costs and reduce trade. This paper shows that differences in the effectiveness of institutions offer an explanation for the tendency of OECD countries to trade disproportionately with each other, and with non-OECD countries.

Formal trade barriers and transport costs explain only part of the resistance to international trade. Search costs on the international market and insecurity of property rights and contract enforcement have recently been emphasized as important intangible barriers to trade. This paper proposes...

The gravity model is the workhorse model to describe and explain variation in bilateral trade patterns. Consistent with both Heckscher-Ohlin models and models of imperfect competition and trade, this versatile model has proven to be very successful, explaining a large part of the variance in...

This paper studies the degree of integration of China's domestic market and investigates the determinants of inter-provincial trade barriers under the rubric endogenous trade policy theory. I rely on industry-level trade flows extracted from provincial input-output tables to develop a model that...

We first demonstrate that, within a fully integrated economy (FIE) in which there is free mobility of goods and factors, each FIE member's share of total FIE output will equal its shares of the total FIE stock of each productive factor. This equal-share property implies that, if economic...

The paper examines the effects of Russia joining the WTO taking into account energy sector reform and the impact of a future Free Trade Agreement (FTA) between the enlarged EU and Russia. The paper uses Computable General Equilibrium Modelling techniques for quantifying the different possible...

This paper is concerned with rules of origin when intermediate goods are differentiated. An analytical model emphasizes trade patterns and the relative importance of trade in intermediates given trade preferences. Econometric evidence based on intra-OECD trade in motor vehicles and motor vehicle...

This paper investigates patterns of manufacturing location in the context of increased economic integration in Central and East European countries. Using regional data for the period 1990-1999, we identify and compare patterns and determinants of manufacturing location in five European Union...

A major economic reason for the introduction of the euro was its supposedly positive effect on intra-EMU trade. Existing studies examine this suspicion indirectly using non-EMU data and report ambiguous results. We estimate the euro-effect directly from data that include EMU observations. Using...

This discussion paper led to a forthcoming publication in </I>Journal of Regional Science</I> entitled 'Are EU Countries less Integrated than US States? Theory and Evidence'.<P> European economic integration is commonly believed to be incomplete, and that further reforms are needed. In this context, the...</p>