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

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the trade of its successor states has spiralled downward. The European Payments Union of the 1950s is frequently invoked as a model for solving this problem. In this paper I show that in fact the EPU is an inappropriate framework for organizing the former...

Theory is ambiguous as to how globalization influences the relative performances of rich and poor countries. This paper surveys some recent literature on the historical links between international commodity and factor market integration and convergence. Focusing on the late nineteenth century, a...

This paper shows how distance may be used to coordinate on a unique equilibrium in which trade agreements are regional. Trade agreement formation is modeled as coalition formation. In a standard trade model with no distance between countries, a familiar problem of coordination failure arises...

This paper challenges the contention that WTO rules had much impact on state behaviour during the recent global economic crisis. Evidence on the variety of discrimination implemented by governments, characteristics of the recent systemic crisis, as well as on certain, often overlooked features...

Three main features characterize the international financial integration of China and India. First, while only having a small global share of privately-held external assets and liabilities (with the exception of China’s FDI liabilities), these countries are large holders of official reserves....

For Africa, a regional customs union is unlikely to realise net welfare gains (in the sense of trade creation dominating trade diversion) which cannot be attained through unilateral trade liberalization. Unilateral reform has often failed in Africa, however. A regional customs union tied to...

The larger trading nations have been the main users of the WTO Dispute Settlement system during its first four years of existence (1995-1998). This has prompted a debate about whether the DS system is biased against smaller and poorer countries, for example, because of a lack of legal capacities...

We develop a model where trade liberalization leads to skill-biased technological change, which in turn raises the relative return to skilled labour. As firms get access to a larger market, they have incentives to choose a more skill-intensive technology because a lowering of variable costs...

The paper examines why ‘globaphobia’ seems to be more prevalent among labour in the United States than in Europe. It argues that globalization has generated more wealth, but also more income inequality and adjustment problems, in America than in Europe. In the United States, the median voter...