Since about a decade, we have seen a surge in interest as well as in the use of services preferentialism and unilateral services regulations. This paper provides an economic explanation of services regulation and services preferentialism, including their interaction. The paper derives hypotheses...

Ein EU-US-Freihandelsabkommen ist seit Jahren überfällig. Anfang Februar 2013 wird die US-EU High Level Group on Growth and Jobs höchstwahrscheinlich die Aufnahme von Verhandlungen empfehlen. Stormy-Annika Mildner, Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik (SWP), und Claudia Schmucker, Deutsche...

China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is a mechanism through which countries can upgrade connectivity-related infrastructure, including through cross-border projects, complementing traditional sources of finance. An overarching goal of the BRI is to reduce trade costs between China and partner...

Ein transatlantisches Freihandelsabkommen, das auch nicht-tarifäre Handelsbarrieren abbaut, hat ein erhebliches Potenzial, Wohlfahrtsgewinne für seine Mitgliedsländer zu schaffen. Das Abkommen führt insbesondere zu einem Anstieg der Exporte der mittelständischen Unternehmen in die USA. Die...

This paper attempts to quantify the impact of economic policy uncertainty on overall trade and trade linked to global value chains. Using new data on policy uncertainty for 18 countries and 24 years, it finds a statistically significant negative impact of policy uncertainty on overall trade...

Das CETA-Abkommen sieht die Abschaffung von Zöllen, regulatorische Zusammenarbeit und Investitionsschutz zwischen der EU und Kanada vor. Nach unseren Simulationsrechnungen könnte es langfristig die Exporte Deutschlands nach Kanada verdreifachen und die Importe verdoppeln. CETA könnte in...

The WTO has struggled with the treatment of nonmarket economies (NMEs). What was a nonissue in the original GATT (because of the homogeneity of participants) became quite an issue with the accession of formally centrally planned economies, which were not transformed to market economies, at least...

This paper analyses the most recent WTO Appellate Body (AB) report in a series of disputes between the U.S. and the EU over government support to aircraft manufacturers Boeing and Airbus. The measures under dispute in U.S. – Tax Incentives were investment promotion subsidies provided to Boeing...

In December 2019 the WTO Appellate Body (AB) will cease to operate unless the United States stops blocking new appointments. The US argues the AB has exceeded its mandate and has indicated it wants to ensure that the AB performs the role originally assigned to it in 1995. This paper discusses...

This paper analyses the relationship between regional trade integration and trade costs in services industries. The empirical analysis relies, on the one hand, on a dataset of theory-consistent bilateral trade costs calculated for 61 countries over the period 2000-2011 and, on the other hand, on...