Canada's trade diversification drive confronts daunting challenges given that economic geography places it deep in the gravity well of the United States while its main diversification opportunities require partnership with the US' chief geostrategic rival, China. In this note, I sketch out how...

This study seeks to identify and estimate the relative importance of supply - versus demand - side constraints on Ethiopia's exports. Ethiopia has tried radically different trade strategies in the past, including a strategy of import replacement/protection for infant industries during the...

The Trans-Pacific Partnership and Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership will impact on substantive market regulations in a wide a range of areas bearing on market access, both by establishing substantive new horizontal and sectoral standards and by establishing requirements regarding...

Small enterprises are underrepresented in international trade, and have not traditionally been the focus of trade negotiations. However, Internet technology is changing the conditions for international trade, decreasing the negative effect of distance and thereby enabling small enterprises to...

While rules of origin (ROOs) constitute an essential element of preferential trade agreements (PTAs), recent analysis of the utilization of preferences shows that even with liberal ROOs, utilization of preferences is often low, especially by smaller exporters. This reflects the high fixed cost...

Canada is at an historic juncture with regard to trade policy, deciding on ratification of the Canada-EU and Trans-Pacific Partnership agreements, having seen the multilateral option effectively removed at the WTO Ministerial at Nairobi in 2015, and facing constraints in making additional...

Building on, and indeed ratcheting up, the rhetoric of the US election campaign, the new Trump Administration has signalled disruptive change to US trade relations. The not-yet-in-force Trans-Pacific Partnership was torn up on day one of the new presidential term, the future of NAFTA was thrown...

As Ethiopia’s new government begins work in September 2010, it is armed with a new plan: the Growth and Transformation Plan (GTP). Trade and foreign direct investment (FDI) figure in the new plan but less reliance is placed on FDI inflows than in the past and as much emphasis appears to be...

This study assesses the potential for enhancement post-Brexit of the UK's non-EU trading relationships by comparing actual levels of UK exports to predicted levels based on gravity model analysis, including by taking into account factors such as similarity/dissimilarity of comparative advantage,...

One criticism of the gravity model of international trade is that it takes no account of comparative advantage. This critique is particularly important when the gravity model is considered for policy applications such as identifying priority markets for trade promotion programs. For example, the...