This edition of Global Trade Watch addresses three questions concerning recent trade developments: What is happening? Why? Does it matter? 2016 is the fifth consecutive year of sluggish trade growth and the year with the weakest trade performance since the aftermath of the 2008 global financial...

Integration into global markets can improve the efficiency of the Argentinian economy, providing opportunities for private investment to flourish and for the associated benefits to accrue to consumers. Among many policies that are important for integrating into the global economy, particularly...

Britain contrary to received wisdom was not a free trader for most of the 1800s and, despite repeal of the Corn Laws, continued to have higher tariffs than the French until the last quarter of the century. War with Louis fourteenth from 1689 led to the end of all trade between Britain and France...

This paper analyzes whether taxation can be successfully used to reduce the incidence of labor informality and achieve higher equality in a globalized economy. To this purpose, it develops a two-area model: a developed country and an emerging country. The two areas differ according to the size...

This paper exploits information from two different datasets to provide a novel and multi-dimensional picture of the engagement of all sub-Saharan African countries in global value chains (GVCs). It documents in detail the nature of the underlying data and the way it is used to construct several...