How do global supply chain linkages modify countries' incentives to impose import protection? Are these linkages empirically important determinants of trade policy? To address these questions, this paper introduces supply chain linkages into a workhorse terms-of-trade model of trade policy with...

This paper investigates the link between competitive, well-functioning food markets and consumer welfare. The paper explores two key food markets in Kenya -- sugar and maize -- and argues that a variety of factors conspire to distort market prices upward. Distortionary factors include import...

This paper analyzes Zambian export patterns using a new transaction-level trade data set for the period 1999-2011. The data show that, in international comparison, Zambian exports are exceptionally concentrated (on mining products). This reliance has been increasing in recent years. Zambia's...

What kinds of changes in foreign competition lead domestic industries to seek import protection? To address this question this paper uses detailed monthly U.S. import data to investigate changes in import composition during a 24-month window immediately preceding the filing of a petition for...

If trade tensions between the United States and certain trading partners escalate into a full-blown trade war, what should developing countries do? Using a global, general-equilibrium model, this paper first simulates the effects of an increase in U.S. tariffs on imports from all regions to...

This paper revisits and expands the evidence on the impact of trade shocks on intra-state conflict with a large sample of developing countries in the 1960-2010 period. The results suggest that increases in the prices of a country's exported commodities raise the country's risk of civil conflict...

For a representative sample of manufacturing firms in 26 countries, this paper shows that changes in the cost of importing over time are significantly and negatively correlated with changes in the percentage of firms' material inputs that are of foreign origin. Furthermore, the paper shows that...

The use of computable general equilibrium (CGE) simulation models for policy analysis has become widespread. However, such techniques are not well suited to economywide analysis in developing countries. Instead, simulation models relying on "borrowed" parameter estimates have been used for a...

The study presents a comprehensive review of developing country trade policies and market access issues as they evolved over the period 1990-2012. The main findings are, first, that applied tariffs as well as traditional core non-tariff measures have declined significantly over time in both...

A study of distortions to agricultural incentives in 18 developing countries during 1960-84, by Krueger, Schiff and Valdes (1988; 1991), found that policies in most of those developing countries were directly or indirectly harming their farmers. Since the mid-1980s there has been a substantial...