Major changes have occurred in the structure of former centrally planned economies, including a sharp rise in the share of services in GDP, employment, and international transactions. However, large differences exist across transition economies with respect to services intensity and services...

The authors analyze the extent to which the EU-15 and 16 transition economies used the WTO General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) to commit to service sector policy reforms. They compare GATS commitments with the evolution of actual policy stances over time. While there is substantial...

The authors examine the effects on national welfare and market access of two public procurement practices-discrimination against foreign suppliers of goods and services and nontransparency of the procedures used to allocate government contracts to firms. Both types of policies have become...

The decision not to launch negotiations in the World Trade Organization (WTO) on three of the Singapore Issues in the so-called July 2004 package provides an opportunity to revisit the knowledge base on which proposals for further international collective action may be drawn. This paper examines...

The authors explore the possibility of government's seeking to agree to apply competition policy based considerations and disciplines in addressing unfair-trade allegations before turning to"standard"antidumping remedies. The premise of proponents of antidumping actions is that the existence of...

The authors explore options for Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) governments to make competition law enforcement more sensitive to trade and investment policy, thereby supporting liberal trade policy. The competition laws of these countries tend to resemble European Union (EU) competition...

The authors analyze national and international policy options to encourage the international transfer of technology, distinguishing between four major channels of such transfer: trade in products, trade in knowledge, foreign direct investment, and intra-national and international movement of...

The authors argue that further moves to liberalize trade and to implement existing GATT rules and principles may have a greater impact on global competition than would the pursuit of harmonization of competition policy. They also suggest that current GATT rules and case law provide scope for...

The authors study whether political campaign contributions influence agricultural protection in the United States in the manner suggested by the political economy model of Grossman and Helpman (1994). This is the first attempt to test this model using agricultural data. The authors test the...

The authors investigate the activities of the Bulgarian competition office, the Commission for the Protection of Competition, for the years 1991-95. They provide descriptive statistics on the industry incidence of investigations, the types of behavior investigated, and the frequency with which...