This paper studies the role of business sentiment in the decisions of multinational enterprises (MNEs) to undertake foreign direct investment (FDI) across European Union (EU) member states. Based on the knowledge-capital model, the study employs the Pseudo Poisson Maximum Likelihood (PPML)...

In this modern digital world, goods from the information and communications technology (ICT) sector are the engine of the global economy. While tariffs levied on ICT goods have been eliminated or significantly reduced since the conclusion in December 1996 of the Information Technology Agreement...

Eight multilateral rounds of negotiations under the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) and international agreements under the World Trade Organisation (WTO) have contributed significantly to the reduction of tariffs among WTO members. However, over the years legitimate reasons for the...

In this paper, we empirically test the effects of the EU's "cohesion policy" on the performance of 273,500 European manufacturing firms after combining regional policy data at NUTS 2 level with firm-level data. In a framework of heterogeneous firms and different absorptive capacity of regions,...

In the past few decades China has put substantial efforts into liberalising its trade and economy that accelerated after its accession to the World Trade Organisation (WTO) in December 2001. In this period China has significantly reduced its tariffs on manufacturing imports. However, the...