The current political turmoil in the Arab world has contributed to renewed interest in the Barcelona Process and how it can be improved in order to promote inclusive growth in the non-EU Mediterranean countries. In this paper, we explore whether deeper integration in the form of trade...

The current political turmoil in the Arab world has contributed to renewed interest in the Barcelona Process. This paper explores whether deeper integration in the form of trade facilitation - i.e. improved and simplified trade procedures - could be an important part of a reform agenda. Adopting...

In this paper we analyse the changes that have taken place on the supply and demand sides of the Swedish labour market during recent decades, with particular focus on youths and the extent to which Swedish youths have become "overeducated". We first provide an overview of theoretical and...

The objective of the paper is to explore and give an overview of two central policy alternatives to improve the integration between the European Union and developing countries by removing barriers to trade: trade preferences and trade facilitation. After reviewing the relevant literatures and...

Since at least the 1960s, the European Union (EU) has offered various kinds of non-reciprocal trade preferences for developing countries. Originally, these trade preferences had at least two policy goals: (i) to increase export volumes for developing countries and thereby boost their export...

Since the 1960's, the EU has offered trade preferences to developing countries in a complex set of systems. Broadly these systems can be divided into preferences for African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries, Mediterranean preferences and the Generalised System of Preferences (GSP). We...

Exploring the link between trade facilitation and the extensive and intensive margins of trade, the paper has two aims. The first and main objective is to investigate whether the extensive margin of trade in homogeneous and differentiated goods is affected in the same way by cross-border trade...

Aiming to explore how the survival of trade flows has evolved over time, we analyze a rich data set of detailed imports to individual EU15 countries from 140 non-EU exporters, covering the period 1962-2006. We find that short duration is a persistent characteristic of trade throughout the...

In endeavouring to explain the empirical puzzle that the sunk costs of exporting are important, but that, at the same time, trade flows do not, on average, survive for very long, this paper explores the concepts of core and peripheral markets. First, it illustrates that if the importance of sunk...

The aim of this paper is to offer a comprehensive overview of non-reciprocal trade preferences. Legal and economic aspects are discussed, and in particular, focus is put on how the specific design of preference programs influence whether or not preferences will have their intended effects. The...