Recent data show that the institutional content of preferential trade agreements has evolved over time. Although pre-1990s preferential trade agreements mostly focused on tariff liberalization, recent agreements increasingly contain deep provisions in diverse areas, such as intellectual property...

Using novel data on patents, trade of equipment goods, and foreign direct investments and insights from the economic literature, the paper seeks to lay out the state of knowledge on the role of innovation and the diffusion of technologies in the greening of global value chains as well as some of...

Numerous studies predict that developing countries with low human capital may not benefit from the strengthening of intellectual property rights. The authors extend an influential theoretical framework to highlight the role of intellectual property rights in the process of innovation and...

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 develops the following price indicators to measure the relative efficiency (functioning) of markets: (a) price dispersion, (b) price volatility, and (c) price tansmission (speed, completeness, and symmetry). The paper uses these indicators to study trends and conditions of the outlet...