The demand for accountability in "Aid-for-Trade" (AFT) is increasing but monitoring has focused on case-studies and impressionistic narratives. The paper reviews recent evidence from a wide range of studies, recognizing that a multiplicity of approaches is needed to learn what works and what...

The increasing importance of premium segments and the proliferation of private labels and certification schemes raise skepticism about the ability of Fair Trade (FT) to help smallholders compete in high value-added markets. Based on a panel dataset collected in Mali in 2008, this paper...

The "Integrated Framework for Trade-related Technical Assistance to the Least Developed Countries" (IF) is a global initiative established in 1997 and is a particular application of what has since been known as "Aid for Trade". The objective of the IF is to support the least developed countries...

Developing countries are increasingly using regional integration as a main policy lever when pursuing a trade-led growth strategy, and today, 'deep' preferential trade agreements go beyond trade policy negotiations and cover trade facilitation issues. Since aid for trade (AfT) has been...

The paper focuses on the role played by Trade Related Institutions (TRIs) in shaping trade flows and their development impact in low-income countries and how these TRIs are shaped by international trade. Three types of TRIs are examined: i) trade agreements; ii) trade promotion organizations;...

This paper evaluates the effects of the FAMEX export promotion program in Tunisia on the performance of beneficiary firms. While most studies assess only the short-term impact of such programs, we consider also the longer-term impact. Estimates suggest that beneficiaries initially saw both...

This paper provides a new theoretically-derived measure of preference margins at the product level, that takes into account competition across exporters as well as competition with domestic producers on a given market. This indicator is derived for differentiated goods under imperfect...

Rwanda has made much progress towards integrating into the world economy, with yearly export growth rates close to 20%. However, largely because of being landlocked, Rwanda is still isolated from many trading partners and, because of the low share of trade in GDP, exports do not contribute much...

This paper assesses the effects of structural reforms on firm-level productivity for 37 developing countries from 2006 to 2014 period. It takes advantage of the IMF Monitoring of Fund Arrangements dataset for reform indexes and the World Bank Enterprise Surveys for firm-level productivity. The...