A key element of the EU’s free trade and preferential trade agreements is the extent to which they deliver improved market access and so contribute to the EUs foreign policy objectives towards developing countries and neighbouring countries in Europe, including the countries of the Balkans....

The paper develops a three-sector general equilibrium model with two informal sectors with complete mobility of labour between these sectors and with a positive relationship between wage income and labour's efficiency to show that the results relating to foreign capital inflow and removal of...

In a production structure reasonable for a developing economy this note shows that there may arise a conflict between the worldwide liberalized trade policies in agriculture, which raise the price of the economy’s primary exportable commodity, and the inflow of foreign capital into the...

This paper analyses the relationship between firm productivity and export behavior in German manufacturing firms. We examine whether productivity increases the probability of exporting, and assert that there is a causal relationship from high productivity to entering foreign markets, as...

Protection unconstrained by rules often varies substantially over time. Rules-based disciplines, such as WTO tariff bindings and bindings on market access in services, constrain this variability. We examine the theoretical effects of such constraints on the expected cost of protection and offer...

WTO negotiations rely on tariff reduction formulas. It has been argued that formula approaches are of increasing importance in trade talks, because of the large number of countries involved, the wider dispersion in initial tariffs (e.g. tariff peaks) and gaps between bound and applied tariff...

This paper uses a model of horizontal multinational enterprises to explore the relationship between transportation costs and trade policy cooperation. Tariffs have the effect of attracting foreign direct investment to the benefit of consumers in the host country. As transport costs fall, the...

Increasingly, in regional agreements, large economies, e.g. U.S. and E.U., offer lower trade barriers in exchange for cooperation by small economies in environmental, intellectual property and other issues. What is the effect of such agreements on multilateral trade liberalization? We show that,...

This paper reviews the evolution of thinking about regional trade agreements (RTAs) and the policy developments reflected in three waves of RTAs during the last half century. It rejects claims, based on number of RTAs notified to the WTO, that RTAs are today more prolific than ever. Desirable...

This paper examines the welfare implications of trade reforms in the presence of a government budget constraint. There is consensus about gains from opening up to trade. The less investigated question is, whether a coordinated tax reform, where the tariff revenue cuts are compensated with...