This paper argues that the pursuit of special and differential treatments (SDT) by developing countries has hampered the liberalization of global service trade, which is one of the causes of the only slowing improving of service efficiency globally. We use value added per worker as a proxy of...

Two central topics in recent rounds of international trade negotiations have been environmental concerns, and services trade. While each is undoubtedly important, they are unrelated. In this paper I show that the services-environment link is small, for two reasons. First, services account for...

This paper discusses the potential impacts of services trade liberalization on developing countries and reviews existing quantitative studies. Its purpose is to distill themes from current literature rather than to advocate specific policy changes. The picture emerging is one of valiant attempts...

This paper emphasizes the different nature of cross border liberalization in network related services, such as telecoms, compared to liberalization in goods. In the presence of network externalities, it argues that if two disjoint country service networks involving a small and large country are...

What incentives do governments have to negotiate "new trade agreements," i.e., agreements that constrain not only governments' choices of tariffs, but also their domestic regulatory policies? We focus on horizontal product standards, i.e., those that impose requirements along a horizontal...

This paper presents a theory of trade agreements where "politics" play an central role. This stands in contrast with the standard theory, where even politically-motivated governments sign trade agreements only to deal with terms-of-trade externalities. We develop a model where governments may be...

and non-discrimination, the two principles that are the pillars of the multi- lateral trading system as embodied in GATT and its successor, the WTO. We show that GATT's principle of reciprocity serves to neutralize the world-price effects of a country's trade policy decisions, and hence can...

Suppose that an opportunity arises for two countries to negotiate a free trade agreement (FTA). Will an FTA between these countries be politically viable? And if so, what form will it take? We address these questions using a political-economy framework that emphasizes the interaction between...

This paper analyzes the extent to which education will be subsidized when the subsidy rate is determined by majority voting. The analysis takes place in a framework where education is a discrete decision and all individuals would like to obtain an education because of its effect on future...

We challenge the conventional wisdom on the variety and productivity gains from trade liberalization which are commonly referred to as "new" gains from trade. In particular, we show that the import variety gains measured in studies such as Broda and Weinstein (2006) are counteracted by exactly...