This paper discusses the channels between openness and productivity and trade hampering factors. The stylized facts from the heterogeneous firms literature suggests that firms face market entry costs for each new product they export and to each new export market. Transport costs, border costs...

Over the last decade the Czech Republic has had the lowest GDP growth of all the ten recently acceded Member States. However, its foreign balance has improved over the same period, as have the terms of trade. Although changing terms of trade can have a significant welfare effect, this often...

The free trade agreement negotiated between the EU and the Republic of Korea (EU-Korea FTA or the Agreement) is far-reaching. In terms of the scope of tariff liberalisation it goes beyond anything the EU has agreed in previous agreements. The coverage of services is also ambitious. In a range of...

The report consists of four distinct parts, which provide a description and a quantitative assessment of the impact of preferential access schemes on the growth and diversification of exports from developing countries to the EU over time. Each part of the report can be read individually. The...

While Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) of both, the United States and the European Union, include labor issues in specific chapters, only US FTAs explicitly have “labor chapters,” while the EU FTAs have a general reference to labor rights through the human rights clause and otherwise refer to...