The current political turmoil in the Arab world has contributed to renewed interest in the Barcelona Process. This paper explores whether deeper integration in the form of trade facilitation - i.e. improved and simplified trade procedures - could be an important part of a reform agenda. Adopting...

A main component of customs unions is a common trade policy on imports from non-member countries. Trade policy covers both tariff and non-tariff barriers like trade procedures. We argue that since trade procedures vary markedly across EU countries, the EU is not, strictly speaking, a customs...

The literature on trade facilitation has mostly focused on implications for trade volumes. However, recent theoretical contributions have emphasized that trade costs - such as transaction costs related to cross-border trade procedures - affect both the traded volumes of "old" goods (the...

Since at least the 1960s, the European Union (EU) has offered various kinds of non-reciprocal trade preferences for developing countries. Originally, these trade preferences had at least two policy goals: (i) to increase export volumes for developing countries and thereby boost their export...

Since at least the 1960s, the European Union (EU) has offered various kinds of non-reciprocal trade preferences for developing countries. Originally, these trade preferences had at least two policy goals: (i) to increase export volumes for developing countries and thereby boost their export...

The current political turmoil in the Arab world has contributed to renewed interest in the Barcelona Process. This paper explores whether deeper integration in the form of trade facilitation – i.e. improved and simplified trade procedures – could be an important part of a reform agenda....

The purpose of this study is to measure the sensitivity of trade volumes and unit values to agricultural productivity shocks at home and abroad. We find that the unit values of trade ows vary systematically with production shocks using both aggregate data on a large sample of countries and...

Timor-Leste's first ten years of independence have been turbulent and a large share of the population remains poor. Broad-based improvements in living standards will require improvements in agricultural production since most Timorese are subsistence farmers and since there is no modern sector to...

We measure the impact of the removal of a railway transportation subsidy on the adoption of technology for Western Canadian farms, using a unique combination of Census and freight rate data. We exploit the large regional variation in these one-time freight rate increases in order to identify...

We estimate the impact of the removal of a railway transportation subsidy on the local economies of Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba, exploiting the large regional variation in these one-time freight rate increases. We find that higher freight rates - and hence lower farm gate prices -...