This paper shows that Investor-State Dispute Settlements (ISDS) makes multinational firms more aggressive by increasing cost-reducing investments with the aim to enlarge the potential compensation an ISDS provision may offer. While a larger investment reduces the market distortion, it will also...

This paper provides a quantitative analysis of the new EU-Japan free trade agreement (FTA), the biggest bilateral deal that both the EU and Japan have concluded so far. It employs a generalized variant of the Eaton-Kortum (2002) model, featuring multiple sectors, input-output linkages, services...

We consider a dynamic setting in which two sovereign states with overlapping ownership claims on a resource/asset first arm and then choose whether to resolve their dispute violently through war or peacefully through settlement. Both approaches depend on the states’ military capacities, but...

We study how a preferential trade agreement (PTA) affects international sourcing decisions, aggregate productivity and welfare under incomplete contracting and endogenous matching. Contract incompleteness implies underinvestment. That inefficiency is mitigated by a PTA, because the agreement...

We study, theoretically and empirically, how countries choose intra-bloc tariffs and preferential margins when they form Preferential Trade Agreements (PTAs). Our model indicates that countries should set systematically lower preferential margins when the bloc takes the form of a free trade area...

While traditional empirical models using determinants like size and trade costs are able to predict RTA formation reasonably well, we demonstrate that allowing for machine detected non-linear patterns helps to improve the predictive power of RTA formation substantially. We employ machine...

In light of the recent tit-for-tat trade dispute between China and the US, interest in quantifying the effects of the so-called phase one agreement has risen. To this end, the paper quantifies the impact of the asymmetric managed trade agreement using such a multi-country open-economy dynamic...

This paper sets up a model of trade, in which two countries with differing levels of technology specialize in the production of sub-stages of the global value chain. In the open economy, the technologically backward country exports intermediates in exchange for imports of a homogeneous...

We study the welfare impact of rules of origin in free trade agreements where final-good producers source customized inputs from suppliers within the trading bloc. We employ a property-rights framework that features hold-up problems in suppliers’ decisions to invest, and where underinvestment...

Can trade agreements motivate environmental conservation? I first present a model whereby the government in the South expands its production capacity (e.g., deforest) before trading with the North. After deriving negative relationships between tariff reductions and conservation, I show how all...