This paper assesses the impact of internal infrastructure and landlockedness on Central Asian trade using a panel gravity equation estimated on a large sample of countries (167 countries over 1992-2004). The panel structure of the dataset makes it possible to control for country-pair specific...

This paper finds that a 1 percent reduction in the cost of exporting or the cost of international transport is associated with an export diversification gain of 0.3 percent or 0.4 percent respectively. Lower domestic market entry costs can also promote diversification, but the elasticity is...

The authors use newly collected data on trade and production in 178 countries to infer estimates of trade costs in agriculture and manufactured goods for the 1995-2010 period. The data show that trade costs are strongly declining in per capita income. Moreover, the rate of change of trade costs...

South Asia has attracted global attention because it has experienced rapid GDP growth over the last two decades. What is not so well known is that South Asia is the least integrated region in the world. South Asia has opened its door to the rest of the world but it remains closed to its...

This paper examines opportunities for Sub-Saharan African countries to effectively participate in globalization, particularly given the increasing interest of China and India in Sub-Saharan Africa. How can Sub-Saharan Africa fully engage and gain benefits from global network trade? Over the past...

Three main features characterize the international financial integration of China and India. First, while only having a small global share of privately-held external assets and liabilities (with the exception of China's foreign direct investment liabilities), these countries are large holders of...

For many in Latin America, the increasing participation of China and India in international markets is seen as a looming shadow of two "mighty giants" on the region's manufacturing sector. Are they really mighty giants when it comes to their impact on manufacturing employment? The authors...

The "rise of Asia" is something of a myth. During 1990-2005 China accounted for 28 percent of global growth, measured at purchasing power parity (PPP). India accounted for 9 percent. The rest of developing Asia, with nearly a billion people, accounted for only 7 percent, the same as Latin...

The authors examine the trade policy response of Latin American governments to the rapid growth of China and India in world markets. To explain higher protection in sectors where a large share is imported from these countries, they extend the "protection for sale" model to allow for different...

Many recent papers have pointed to ambiguous trade effects of developing regional trade agreements (RTAs), calling for a reassessment of their economic merits. The author focuses on seven such agreements currently in force in Sub-Saharan Africa (ECOWAS and SADC), Asia (AFTA and SAPTA) and Latin...