Migration is an important yet neglected determinant of institutions. This paper documents the channels through which emigration affects home country institutions and considers dynamic-panel regressions for a large sample of developing countries. The authors find that emigration and human capital...

That remittances are a stable source of external finance seems to have become the received wisdom. In addition, many studies have found remittances to behave counter-cyclically, increasing during crises and times of hardship for the recipient countries. Are remittances reliable macroeconomic...

This paper provides a different basis than previous analyses for regional bloc formation and regional migration. Due to low bargaining power and fixed costs, small states face a severe disadvantage in negotiations with the rest of the world and might benefit by forming a regional bloc. The study...

Based on static analysis, a number of studies argue that forming a regional trade agreement is more likely to raise welfare if member countries are"natural trading partners,"while other studies claim that the opposite is true. Schiff and Wang look at the argument from a dynamic viewpoint by...

The authors are particularly interested in evaluating the concern that efficiency or policy-induced changes in the supply of exports of primary commodities, such as cocoa, coffee, and tea, may lead to such a large decline in the prices of those commodities that export revenues and incomes of the...

Before 1973, the labor market in Europe was tight and immigration from the South (chiefly North Africa and Southern Europe) was encouraged. But with the slowdown in growth in the mid-1970s, the rise in unemployment, and increased economic uncertainty, immigration came to be viewed as a burden by...

It has been widely argued that, with the decline in trade costs (for example, transport and communication costs), the importance of distance has declined over time. If so, this would be a boon for countries located far from the main centers of economic activity. The authors examine the evolution...

The literature on regional integration agreements (RIAs) is vast and deals with political, economic, and political economy issues. The literature on the economics of RIAs deals mostly with static effects, and concludes that these effects are, in general, ambiguous. So far there has been no...

The author combines two theories - one about how multilateral trade liberalization affects regional integration, the other about how it affects political disintegration - to explain why the ratio of free trade areas to customs unions has increased over time. Ethier argues (1998, 1999) that...

The authors review the arguments for taxing imports, considering two cases: one in which a country has market power in the export commodity, and one in which it does not. They conclude that for countries having market share there are strong analytical and practical arguments for an export tax....