Traditional computable general equilibrium (CGE) models based on the Armington assumption fail to capture the extensive margin of trade, and thereby underestimate the trade and welfare effects of trade opening. To address this problem, this paper introduces the Melitz (2003) theoretical...

A huge body of empirical and theoretical literature has emerged on the relationship between foreign exchange (FX) uncertainty and international trade. Empirical findings about the impact of FX uncertainty on trade figures are at best weak and often ambiguous with respect to its direction. Almost...

This paper presents a dynamic framework which implements risk as a continuous variable into the proximity-concentration trade-of concept. Additionally firms have the possibility to postpone their investment decision which gives them the possibility to collect further information about the...

Measures to actively facilitate trade are increasingly seen as essential to assist developing countries in expanding trade and benefiting from globalisation. Although often viewed as narrowly concerned with the ease and speed of Customs procedures, even greater trade cost reductions and trade...

Investment is a major determinant of economic growth, both in reference to the level of the capital stock and its productivity, but has been deficient in poor developing countries. A particular concern for poor countries has been relatively low levels of foreign direct investment (FDI), and a...

Measures to support Competition Policy and enhance the efficiency of Public Procurement can enhance the impact of regional integration agreements. The first part addresses Competition Policy - measures employed by government to ensure a fair competitive market environment. Competition policy...

This paper develops a set of time series models to provide short-term forecasts (6 to 18 months ahead) of international trade both at the global level and for selected regions. Our results compare favourably to other forecasts, notably by the International Monetary Fund, as measured by standard...

For many in Latin America, the increasing participation of China and India in international markets is seen as a looming shadow of two "mighty giants" on the region's manufacturing sector. Are they really mighty giants when it comes to their impact on manufacturing employment? This paper...

Common approaches to test for the economic value of directional forecasts are based on the classical Chi-square test for independence, Fisher’s exact test or the Pesaran and Timmerman (1992) test for market timing. These tests are asymptotically valid for serially independent observations....

Forecasting the world economy is a difficult task given the complex interrelationships within and across countries. This paper proposes a number of approaches to forecast short-term changes in selected world economic variables and aims, first, at ranking various forecasting methods in terms of...