In this paper, we estimated the standard (macro-economic) import equation over the period 1995-2021Q2, using an import intensity-adjusted measure of aggregate demand (IAD) calculated from input-output tables at country level, and compared the results with regressions using GDP. Initially...

World trade growth was rapid in the two decades prior to the global financial crisis but has halved subsequently. There are both structural and cyclical reasons for the slowdown. A deceleration in the rate of trade liberalisation post 2000 was initially obscured by the ongoing expansion of...

Since the recovery from the great financial crisis in 2010, global real trade flows grew much slower than pre-crisis, in both absolute terms (growth rates) and relative terms (relative to GDP, from 2:1 in the great 1990's to 1:1 since 2012) A debate has arisen as to whether this global trade...

Since the recovery from the great financial crisis in 2010, global real trade flows grew much slower than pre-crisis, in both absolute terms (growth rates) and relative terms (relative to GDP, from 2:1 in the great 1990's to 1:1 since 2012) A debate has arisen as to whether this global trade...

Whether international economic integration arrangements result in more liberal trade at the multilateral level cannot be proven with ease. Integration may start this process, but it may also reverse it. New mega-integration deals: the Trans-Pacific Partnership, Regional Comprehensive Economic...

National debates over policies that affect the flow of digital information are heating up as censorship, surveillance, control over personal data, and requirements to store data locally have emerged as contentious political issues. In the coming years, governments will need to carefully craft...

More than 170 years ago, Frédéric Bastiat noted in his masterly work Economic Sophisms that the “opposition to free trade rests upon errors, or, if you prefer, upon half-truths.”1 Ever since Adam Smith successfully replaced mercantilist orthodoxy with free trade doctrine in his celebrated...

Global trade growth has slowed since 2012 relative both to its strong historical performance and to overall economic growth. This paper aims to quantify the role of weak economic growth and changes in its decomposition in accounting for the slowdown in trade using a reduced form and a structural...

Trade and investment can be effective means of implementation of the 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda. However, stand-alone trade and investment liberalization policies aimed at enhancing economic development may have negative side-effects on non-economic facets of sustainable development. As...