Unilateral tariff liberalisation by developing nations is pervasive but our understanding of it is shallow. This paper strives to partly redress this lacuna on the theory side by introducing three novel political economy mechanisms with particular emphasis is on the role of production...

Unilateral tariff liberalisation by developing nations is pervasive but our understanding of it is shallow. This paper strives to partly redress this lacuna on the theory side by introducing three novel political economy mechanisms with particular emphasis is on the role of production...

Unilateral tariff liberalisation by developing nations is pervasive but our understanding of it is shallow. This paper strives to partly redress this lacuna on the theory side by introducing three novel political economy mechanisms with particular emphasis is on the role of production...

The paper argues that East Asian regionalism is fragile since (i) each nation's industrial competitiveness depends on the smooth functioning of 'Factory Asia' - in particular on intra-regional trade; (ii) the unilateral tariff-cutting that created 'Factory Asia' is not subject to WTO discipline...

The stumbling-block argument asserts that regionalism hinders MFN tariff cutting. If this was of first-order importance over previous decades, we should see a negative relationship between the level of MFN and preferential tariffs, i.e. MFN and PTA tariffs should be substitutes. Using tariff...

Small Think Regionalism focused on the Vinerian question: "Would a nation gain from joining a trade bloc?" Big Think Regionalism considers regionalism's systemic impact on the world trading system, focusing mainly on two questions: "Does spreading regionalism harm world welfare?" and "Does...

Bilateral, product-level data exhibit a number of strong patterns that can be used to evaluate international trade theories, notably the spatial incidence of "export zeros" (correlated with distance and importer size), and of export unit values (positively related to distance). We show that...

Fragmentation of stages of the production process is determined by international cost differences and by the benefits of co-location of related stages.  The interaction between these forces depends on the technological relationships between these stages.  This paper looks at both cost...

Global supply chains (GSCs) are transforming the world. This paper explores why they emerged, why they are significant and future directions they are likely to take along with some implications for policy. After putting global supply chains into an historical perspective, the paper presents an...

Global production sharing is determined by international cost differences and frictions related to the costs of unbundling stages spatially. The interaction between these forces depends on engineering details of the production process with two extremes being ‘snakes’ and ‘spiders’....