International trade is vital for economic prosperity in Pacific island countries, but their trade performance has been weak over the past decade with the exception of resource-rich countries. Small country size and remoteness from global economic centers may have contributed to this relatively...

This paper focuses on two central issues related to the contrasting experiences of Malaysia and Pakistan regarding poverty reduction. First, it examines the structure of economic growth and its proximate determinants in the two countries, including the initial conditions, institutional changes,...

This paper considers the effects of trade policy-tariffs and quotas-when importing is done by competitive traders who are identical ex ante but differ ex post. We show that the standard equivalence results no longer hold and the conventional ranking of tariffs and quotas is turned on its head:...

This paper presents a model that incorporates uncertainty about trade reform and analyzes the effects of trade and financial liberalization on domestic investment and savings, the current account balance and the real exchange rate, both when the capital account is open and when it is closed....

Unit value export and import indices compiled from returns to customs authorities are often used as surrogates for price indices in the measurement of inflation transmission, terms of trade (effects), and to deflate import and export value series to derive volume series. Their widespread use is...

This paper examines the effect of unionization on welfare and trade policy in a model of duopolists competing in a third market. It shows that the traditional result that the presence of a union necessitates a stronger strategic trade policy to reach the optimal level of welfare depends on the...

In this paper, the IMF's new Global Economy Model (GEM) is used to estimate the contribution of unbalanced growth to the decline in the share of goods production in Australia and New Zealand. The simulation results suggest that faster productivity growth in the tradable goods sector in...

All financial institutions specialize, in dimensions that may include categories of assets and liabilities, types of services offered, customer demographics, and geographic coverage. The International Monetary Fund is the only international financial institution that is universal in its...

International trade theory has pointed out that factor accumulation could immiserize a country if it is sufficiently biased toward the export sector, or if it is biased toward an importcompeting sector in the presence of tariff protection. This paper analyzes the impact of aid, in the form of an...

We use data on the sources of debt finance of U.S. majority-owned foreign affiliates in 53 countries over the period 1983 to 2001 to examine the role of financial market development, and exposure to host country-specific risk on the financing choices of these affiliates. We find that total...