Canada is developing a progressive trade agenda (PTA) that is pitched as a response to the rise of anti-globalization populism. This note reviews the concept of the PTA, its motivation, the specific elements that comprise it, the likely efficacy of these measures in addressing the factors...

When national competitiveness is invoked as a policy objective, trade experts have learned to retort that countries don't trade, firms do. This focus on the importance of the firm in international trade is consistent with the most recent developments in trade theory, but policy needs to catch...

“Government-to-government” relations, underpinned by high-level Canadian representation in foreign nations, such as an embassy, significantly boost the level of Canadian exports to those countries, according to a new C. D. Howe Institute report. In the study, entitled “The Impact of...

When national competitiveness is invoked as a policy objective, trade experts have learned to retort that countries don`t trade, firms do. This focus on the importance of the firm in international trade is consistent with the most recent developments in trade theory, but policy needs to catch...

“Government-to-government” relations, underpinned by high-level Canadian representation in foreign nations, such as an embassy, significantly boost the level of Canadian exports to those countries, according to a new C. D. Howe Institute report. In the study, entitled “The Impact of...

When national competitiveness is invoked as a policy objective, trade experts have learned to retort that countries don't trade, firms do. This focus on the importance of the firm in international trade is consistent with the most recent developments in trade theory, but policy needs to catch...

Case studies, anecdotal evidence and theory suggest that firms obtain valuable knowledge inputs from engaging in exporting. Yet the prevailing consensus is that good firms self-select into exporting while the evidence for an additional gain in productivity from entering into exporting –...

This paper considers the trade and trade-related policy implications of the heterogeneous firms trade literature developed in the context of “new new trade theory”. The recognition in trade theory of firm-level heterogeneity and of the complex global strategies of multinational firms has not...

This note discusses the scale of the risks to bilateral UK-EU trade under alternative scenarios for the UK leaving the Union, including a hard Brexit, a soft EFTA-like Brefta, and the scope for the foregone UK-EU trade to be made up through alternative agreements. It comments on the risks to...