Despite the appreciation of the exchange rate, the eight Central and Eastern European countries (the CEE-8) that entered the European Union in May 2004 have achieved a decade of impressive export growth, expanding significantly their shares of world markets. Does this mean that the real exchange...

The carbon tax is a major instrument for curbing greenhouse gas emissions that cause global warming. Yet its adoption has been limited because of concerns over its effects on economic growth, income distribution, and international competitiveness. The paper shows that policymakers can minimize...

The IMF Working Papers series is designed to make IMF staff research available to a wide audience. Almost 300 Working Papers are released each year, covering a wide range of theoretical and analytical topics, including balance of payments, monetary and fiscal issues, global liquidity, and...

This paper discusses five indicators of competitiveness: real exchange rates based on consumer price indices, export unit values of manufacturing goods, the relative price of traded to nontraded goods, normalized unit labor costs in manufacturing, and the ratio of normalized unit labor costs to...

This paper examines the effect of international trade on corporate market power in emerging market economies and developing countries, with a special focus on sub-Saharan Africa. The analysis is based on a large firm-level dataset, tariff data by sector and agreggate indicators of international...

This paper analyses the evolution of Chile''s trade between 1990 and 2007, studying in particular the impact of trade liberalization in addition to traditional price and demand determinants. The results show that export and import flows are mainly responsive to external and domestic demand, and...

When the exchange rate fluctuates and the market exhibits hysteresis, planning horizons of domestic and foreign competitors will matter in determining pass-through as well as relative market shares of these firms. Using the Cournot duopoly model, it is shown that if the foreign exporter is a...