Cyprus appeared to be a South European success story until the beginning of the economic and financial crisis in 2008. But in early 2013, the country was at the edge of bankruptcy, its leading banks were illiquid, its economy was shrinking and unemployment was rising. Against this background,...

One of the top priorities to improve the European Union's growth performance is the creation ofsingle market for services. The directive on services adopted by the Parliament and the Council by the end of 2006 aims at removing barriers to the free movement of service providers on the internal...

Sino-European trade relations have affected Europe's bilateral comparative advantages over time. The change in bilateral trade is compared to the overall development of European trade to highlight the features of China's structural change. China is shown to be increasingly specializing in...

We develop a methodology based on two important criteria - sensitivity in delivery time and value-to-weight ratio – to classify air cargo products. The classification is applied to evaluate the trade integration in Southern Africa since air cargo is a valuable option to overcome trade barriers...

In this paper we develop a methodology which is based on two important criteria - sensitivity in delivery time and value-to-weight ratio - to classify products relevant for air transport. Detailed trade data by mode of transport are used to check the loading of an average airplane between South...

Sino-European trade relations have affected Europe's bilateral comparative advantages over time. The change in bilateral trade is compared to the overall development of European trade to highlight the features of China's structural change. China is shown to be increasingly specializing in...

While previous studies highlight the importance of the manufacturing sector in the economy, we argue that rather backbone services play a key role for economic growth. We perform an Input-Output analysis to determine the linkages between backbone services and manufacturing in South Africa. We...

Firms' international fragmentation of production has recently widened its focus from outsourcing of intermediates to off-shoring of business services such as software program development and international call center networks. Although many services are intangible and non-storable, gravity model...

The firms' international fragmentation of production has recently widened its focus from outsourcing of intermediates to off-shoring of business services such as software program development and international call centre networks. Although a large number of business services are intangible and...

Innovations in information- and telecommunication technology render the proximity requirement between business partners obsolete and make business service outsourcing via cross-border trade more feasible. Although the (service-led) growth prospects have been widely discussed, evidence at the...