The authors examine the welfare effects of increasing household energy prices in Poland. Their main finding is that the policy of subsidizing household energy prices, common in the transition economies of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, is regressive. Such programs do help the poor...

This paper examines private sector job creation in Tunisia over the period 1996-2010 using a unique database containing information on all registered private enterprises, including self-employment. In spite of stable growth of gross domestic product, overall net job creation was disappointing...

The volume of world trade has grown more than twice as fast as real world income since 1980. Surprisingly, the effect of distance on trade has increased during this period. It could be that countries are trading greater volumes of goods that are highly sensitive to distance. An alternative...

Trade does not stimulate growth in economies with excessive business and labor regulations. The authors examine the effect of openness on growth using cross-country regressions in both levels and changes. Results from the levels regressions imply that increased openness is associated with a...

This paper provides new survey evidence showing that loss aversion and reference dependence are important in shaping people's perception of trade policy. Under the assumption that agents'welfare functions exhibit these behavioral elements, we analyze a model with a welfare-maximizing government...

The authors determine how time delays affect international trade using newly collected World Bank data on the days it takes to move standard cargo from the factory gate to the ship in 126 countries. They estimate a modified gravity equation, controlling for endogeneity and remoteness. On...

This paper examines the effect of regionalism on unilateral trade liberalization using industry-level data on applied most-favored nation tariffs and bilateral preferences for ten Latin American countries from 1990 to 2001. The findings show that preferential tariff reduction in a given sector...

How can countries stimulate and sustain strong export growth? To answer this question, the authors examine 92 episodes of export surges, defined as significant increases in manufacturing export growth that are sustained for at least seven years. They find that export surges in developing...

This paper examines the relationship between regulation and the business interests of President Ben Ali and his family, using firm-level data from Tunisia for 1994-2010. Data on investment regulations are merged with balance sheet and firm-level census data in which 220 firms owned by the Ben...

Recorded workers'remittances to developing countries have grown rapidly, to more than $100 billion in 2004, bringing increasing attention to these flows as a potential tool for development. But even these statistics are likely to significantly understate true remittances, as a large share is...