The paper discusses the costs and benefits to be expected by least-developed and low-income ("vulnerable") economies if they accede to the WTO, the impact of current debates about WTO reform on vulnerable economies, and measures to make it easier for vulnerable economies to accede to and...

For many applicant countries, accession to the WTO has been, and still is, a frustratingly slow process. In this paper, we discuss the substantial, contentious issues that are slowing down progress in accession negotiations. We contrast these with the benefits of WTO accession not only to the...

We explore the link between international stock market comovement and the degree to which firms operate globally. Using stock returns and balance sheet data for companies in 20 countries, we estimate a factor model that decomposes stock returns into global, country-specific and industry-specific...

Openness appears to have a strong impact on economic growth especially in DCs, which typically exhibit a high share of physical capital in factor income and a low share of labor. In the neoclassical growth model with partial capital mobility, physical capital's share in factor income determines...

The paper discusses similarities and differences between past EU binding internal liberalization "across the board" in the industrial sector and present so-called voluntary sectoral liberalization of member states of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC). While both approaches are...

This paper estimates the costs of EU restraints on trade in textiles and clothing. After explaining the methods used, we examine the impact of an opening up of EU trade in textiles and clothing, inter alia to those economies where the textile and clothing (T&C) industries command sizeable shares...