Since about a decade, we have seen a surge in interest as well as in the use of services preferentialism and unilateral services regulations. This paper provides an economic explanation of services regulation and services preferentialism, including their interaction. The paper derives hypotheses...

The share of low-income countries in global exports nearly tripled between 1990 and 2015, driven largely by the rapid emergence of China as an exporting powerhouse. While research in economics had long acknowledged that trade with lower-income countries could raise income inequality in Europe...

Morocco's trade liberalization policies coincided with macroeconomic growth over the past two decades. The relationship between trade liberalization and individual-level labor-market outcomes, however, are not well understood. By combining three complementary approaches and modeling techniques,...

How will international integration affect welfare policies? This paper considers the possibilities of financing public sector activities (public consumption and social security expenses) by general (wage) taxation in an economy which becomes more integrated in international product markets. Even...

How does international integration affect the welfare state? Does it call for a leaner or an expanded welfare state? International integration may affect the distortions caused by welfare state activities but also the risks motivating social insurance mechanisms. This paper addresses these...

This paper explores the role of country asymmetries for trade and industrial policies with heterogeneous firms. Our analysis delivers a number of novel results. First, trade policies, infrastructure policies and industrial policies which improve the business conditions in one country have...

We develop a general equilibrium model of international trade with heterogeneous firms, where countries can invest into basic research to improve their technological potential. These research investments tighten firm selection and raise the average productivity of firms in the market, thereby...

The WTO has struggled with the treatment of nonmarket economies (NMEs). What was a nonissue in the original GATT (because of the homogeneity of participants) became quite an issue with the accession of formally centrally planned economies, which were not transformed to market economies, at least...

This paper analyses the most recent WTO Appellate Body (AB) report in a series of disputes between the U.S. and the EU over government support to aircraft manufacturers Boeing and Airbus. The measures under dispute in U.S. – Tax Incentives were investment promotion subsidies provided to Boeing...

In December 2019 the WTO Appellate Body (AB) will cease to operate unless the United States stops blocking new appointments. The US argues the AB has exceeded its mandate and has indicated it wants to ensure that the AB performs the role originally assigned to it in 1995. This paper discusses...