We capitalize on the latest developments in the empirical structural gravity literature to revisit the question of whether and how much does GATT/WTO membership affect international trade. We are the first to capture the non-discriminatory nature of GATT/WTO commitments by measuring the effects...

We try to achieve this objective in four steps. First, we focus on the original Armington CES gravity model, as a representative framework for a large class of GE models, to offer a deep analysis of the structural relationships underlying the general equilibrium gravity system, and how they can...

Then, we integrate the latest developments in the empirical gravity literature and we offer six recommendations to obtain reliable partial equilibrium estimates of the effects of bilateral and non-discriminatory trade policies within the same comprehensive, and theoretically-consistent...

The WTO Trade Facilitation Agreement (TFA) has been predicted to bring about an expansion in trade flows and real income gains. To date, there is still very limited empirical evidence on the actual post-implementation impact of the TFA. This paper provides an assessment, combining econometric...

We exploit a decomposition of gross trade flows into their value added components to reassess the relationship between increased imports from China and manufacturing jobs in US local labour markets following the seminal paper of Autor, Dorn, and Hanson (2013, ADH). Decomposed trade flows enable...

A second approach focuses on the relationships existing between the variables themselves, using multi-criteria and graph analysis. Natural resources endowments, on the one hand, and services orientation, on the other one, are among the most determinant variables for defining Trade in Value Added...

Two issues stand out in this conversation. The first concerns the unfinished business of the global fight against the scourge of poverty, which impacts one region more than most: Africa. At the same time, a key pre-requisite for economic performance - affordable and efficient public...

In particular, the ability to export on time is crucial to explain comparative advantage in intermediate goods. These findings underscore the importance of investing in infrastructure and fostering trade facilitation to boost a country's participation in production networks. Furthermore, we...

Notwithstanding some progress in market and product diversification - including services - LDCs remain particularly vulnerable to external shocks. With the exception of 2006-2008, the LDCs as a group have systematically recorded a trade deficit. The 2008-2009 global crisis and the bumpy recovery...

Trade costs such as applied tariffs, transportation and insurance costs are amplified as they pass through the multiple production steps associated with modern supply chains. This so-called "cascade effect" arises since trade costs accumulate as intermediate goods are imported and then...