Rules of origin (ROO) are pivotal element of the Greater Arab Free Trade Area (GAFTA). ROO are basically established to ensure that only eligible products receive preferential tariff treatment. Taking into consideration the profound implications of ROO for enhancing trade flows and facilitating...

Economic integration in South Asia is governed by India's relations with the other economies of the region and it is also at the helm of all trade facilitation and transit issues of the region. Concessions given by India under SAFTA for LDCs have greatly benefitted Bangladesh and concessions to...

We use data on Chinese manufacturing firms to study the connection between individual firm imports and firm export outcomes. Since our panel covers the years 2002 to 2006, we can use changes in import tariffs associated with China's WTO entry as instruments. Our regression results show that...

We work with a panel of bilateral trade flows from 1988 to 2002, exploring the influence of infrastructure, institutional quality, colonial and geographic context, and trade preferences on the pattern of bilateral trade. We are interested in threshold effects, and so emphasize those cases where...

Most FDI takes place between the developed countries, which suggests that the market-seeking motive is important for understanding FDI. However, given the stylized fact that trade barriers (e.g. transportation costs and financial barriers) have declined over the past 20 years, models that aim to...

Recent evidence suggests that despite opening up a country for trade, the productivity gap between developed and emerging economies often does not close. This paper examines credit constraints as one channel held responsible for hampering convergence. Specifically, we extend a Melitz and...

Trade liberalization is no Pareto-improvement - there are winners (high-skilled) and losers (low-skilled). To compensate the losers the government is assumed to introduce unemployment benefits (UB). These benefits are financed by either a wage tax, a payroll tax, or a profit tax. Using a...