Least developed countries rely on preferential market access. Proof of sufficient transformation has to be provided to customs in importing countries by meeting Rules of Origin requirements to benefit from these preferences. These Rules of Origin have turned out to be complicated and burdensome...

This paper complements the cross-country approach by examining the correlates of growth acceleration in per capita gross domestic product around"significant"public expenditure episodes by reorganizing the data around turning points, or events. The authors define a growth event as an increase in...

At the Davos forum of January 2014, a group of 14 countries pledged to launch negotiations on liberalizing trade in"green goods"(also known as"environmental"goods), focusing on the elimination of tariffs for an Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation list of 54 products. The paper shows that the Davos...

In recent years, two classes of computable general equilibrium (CGE) trade models have been used to investigate external sector policies: single country and and multicountry trade models. The authors examine the treatment of exports and imports in recent single country CGE models of small...

In 1981, the United States (U.S.) induced the Japanese to agree to a voluntary export restraint (VER) on their export of autos to the U.S. The countries negotiated the VERagainst a backdrop of falling U.S. production and employment in the auto industry and several legislative attempts to curb...

Non-tariff barriers (NTBs) present a growing threat to a liberal world-trading system and slow the reallocation of production of mature industries from developed to developing countries. Among NTBs, voluntary export restraints (VERs) are proliferating and constitute a major element of the"new...

The"distance effect"measuring the elasticity of trade flows to distance has been rising since the early 1970s in a host of studies based on the gravity model, leading observers to call it the"distance puzzle". This paper reviews the evidence and explanations. Using an extensive data set of 124...

In developing countries, industrialization for successful export-led growth has been associated with rapid structural change and growth in productivity. Standard neoclassical growth models have difficulty explaining this change in performance. This paper has developed a simple analytical model...

This paper has analyzed implications of the U.K, French and German voluntary export restraints (VERs) negotiated with Japanese carmakers. The paper shows how VERs do not protect domestic industries and probably end up costing consumers more. First, most EC countries followed suit after the...

Using tariffs as a measure of openness, the authors find consistent evidence that the conditional effects of trade liberalization on inequality are correlated with relative factor endowments. Trade liberalization is associated with increases in inequality in countries well-endowed in highly...