This paper is concerned with the interaction of regulated efficiency and World Trade Organization (WTO) accession and its impact on China’s motor vehicle sector. The analysis is conducted using a 23 sector–25 region computable general equilibrium model. Regulatory reform and internal...

This paper discusses the measurement of production and employment effects of trade policy, and more broadly the effects of economic integration and globalization. First, it provides a broad-brush overview of the ex-post literature linking trade to performance, such as measures of worker...

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...

We study the optimal trade policy against a foreign oligopoly with endogenous quality. We show that, under the Most Favoured Nation (MFN) clause, a uniform tariff policy is always welfare improving over the free trade equilibrium. However, a nonuniform tariff policy is always desirable on...

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 analyze the empirical violation of the Hillman condition, a necessary and sufficient condition for the correspondence between comparative advantage and pre-trade relative prices. Our comprehensive data set allows us to investigate the Hillman condition for virtually all countries of the...