Recent data advances have opened exciting new avenues for analyzing the political economy of foreign aid. Recent papers have looked at the social, environmental or welfare implications of aid. This paper, however, combines geo-referenced data on foreign aid with a similarly coded dataset of FDI...

Tax treaties between countries influence how much tax revenues governments receive from multinational enterprises. These treaties often reduce the withholding tax rates on outgoing dividend and interest payments. We provide illustrative estimates of costs for these two taxes for 14 developing...

Illicit financial flows (IFFs) constitute a major challenge for development in the Global South, as domestic resource mobilization is imperative for providing crucial public services. While several methods offer to measure the extent of IFFs, each has its benefits and drawbacks. Critically,...

This paper uses micro-data from the World Bank Enterprise Surveys 2002-2006 to investigate how foreign ownership affects the likelihood of manufacturers in developing countries to export and/or import. Applying propensity score matching to control for differences across firms in terms of labor...

This paper explores the dynamic relationships between foreign direct investment (FDI), international trade, and economic development. First, emphasizing the pivotal role of multinational enterprises (MNEs) - particularly in the context of Global Value Chains (GVCs) - it underscores how FDI and...

A pivotal factor to improving the economies of developing countries is to eliminate trade barriers and increase market access. This paper examines efforts at liberalizing trade in developing countries. It explains the various multilateral trade agreements and negotiations and analyses their...

Proponents of trade liberalization routinely defend international trade institutions as engines of economic growth that benefit everyone. How trade proponents justify trade institutions matters because their justificatory rhetoric leads to certain policy conclusions about whether it is...

This paper uses micro-data from the World Bank Investment Climate Surveys 2002-2006 to investigate how foreign ownership and access to external finance affect the likelihood of manufacturers in emerging markets to export and/or import. Applying propensity score matching to control for...

This paper uses micro-data from the World Bank Investment Climate Surveys 2002-2006 to investigate how foreign ownership and access to external finance affect the likelihood of manufacturers in emerging markets to export and/or import. Applying propensity score matching to control for...

We consider two channels via which foreign inputs into industrial production may lead to productivity effects. The first one concerns dynamic externalities between firms which share technical and organizational knowledge which is vital for the productivity growth of a particular industry. We...