The paper addresses the question of whether trade restrictiveness impacts economic performance, via a trade restrictiveness index that is decomposable into a trade distortion and a domestic distortion component. The paper builds on the Anderson and Neary price index measure of trade distortion,...

Does labeling products "Child-Labor Free" provide a market-based solution to the pervasive employment of child labor? This paper explores the promise of social labeling in the context of its four oft-noted objectives: child labor employment, consumer information, welfare, and trade linkages,...

The paper examines the effectiveness of eco-labeling in providing a market-based solution to the under-consumption of eco-friendly products in developing and developed countries. The authors show that whether labeling is an effective device in solving the problem of asymmetric information...