While global rebalancing will mainly involve structural realignment among major advanced and emerging market economies, it could have significant impact on low-income countries (LICs). Simulations using a global general equilibrium model show that a more balanced global economy would tend to...

The analysis in this paper suggests that import and export volume elasticities are markedly lower in oil-exporting Middle East and Central Asian countries than in non-oil countries in the region. A key implication of this finding is that a real appreciation of the exchange rate in oil-exporting...

This paper provides econometric estimates of trade elasticities for Brazil obtained through cointegration and vector auto regression models and controlling for the effects of exchange rate volatility, capacity utilization, and changes in import tariffs. The results suggest that (i) recent market...

This paper examines the composition of primary commodity exports by industrial countries and contrasts this composition with that of the exports by developing countries. Both the share of industrial countries’ commodity exports in world commodity exports, as well as in their own total...

The export performance of Sub-Saharan Africa has lagged behind that of developing countries in other regions for the past two decades, and total export proceeds have fallen significantly since 1980. Many factors explain this outcome, including continued concentration in slowly-growing non-fuel...

Germany's export market share increased since 2000, while most industrial countries experienced declines. This study explores four explanations and evaluates their empirical contributions: (i) improved cost competitiveness, (ii) ties to fast growing trading partners, (iii) increased demand for...

This paper analyzes Zimbabwe's export performance in recent years and identifies the factors that could improve export performance, from both a quantitative and qualitative perspective. Improving export performance is critical to a turnaround in Zimbabwe's economic situation. The growth rate of...

The real effective exchange rate is an aggregation of several bilateral real exchange rates with respect to other countries. The aggregation is usually done under the assumption of constant elasticity of substitution (CES) between products from different countries. We investigate the validity of...

This paper reexamines Korea's trade flows. Using the standard demand-based models, the paper finds that owing to the increasing share of electrical and electronic products (EEPs) in total exports, the income elasticity of the Korean export demand has fallen sharply while its price elasticity has...

The purpose of this paper is to assess Madagascar's competitiveness in recent years, using both price and nonprice indicators and an exchange rate assessment of the currency. We estimate the distance between the equilibrium and the actual real exchange rates using three methods: the...