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...

We build upon new developments in the international trade literature to isolate and quantify the long-run economic impacts of tariff changes on the United States and the global economy. In particular, we apply the most recent data and trade elasticity estimates to the Ricardian model of Caliendo...

This paper presents empirical evidence from a cross-section sample of thirty six Sub-Saharan African countries and time-series sample of selected seven. The evidence suggests that countries in the region that open generally tend to grow faster than those that are closed. However, the...

This paper presents an extended model that includes Thirlwall's simple rule. Growth in Mexico fell from an annual average of 6,76% in 1961-1981 to 2,95% in the 1982-2004 period. Net flows of capital, rents and transfers promote and stabilize the economy, while devaluation does not improve...

Using an extended model to calculate the level of growth consistent with the behavior of the balance of payments and the simple structure equation proposed by Thirlwall, a growth rate larger than the observed rate was estimated. This is explained by the accumulated surplus in the commercial...

Many countries use duty drawbacks on exports, yet they have been given little attention in the literature and there is no consensus whether countries should embrace or abandon them. Ianchovichina asserts that the answer depends on a country's development priorities and economic conditions. An...

In Colombia there is no evidence of a direct relationship between economic growth and trade opening; on the contrary, there is evidence that Thirlwall's Law in all its versions better explains the relationship between the external sector and growth, even though the terms of trade are not...

This work shows the asymmetric effect of the reduction in transportation costs across different sectors in the process of the Great Divergence. Specifically, the analysis indicates that reductions in transportation costs of industrial goods enhance convergence of the growth rates of trading...

The purpose of this paper is to examine dynamic interdependence between wealth accumulation, capital accumulation, economic structure, domestic and global division of labor, international trade and environmental change with transboundary pollution. It analyzes not only inequalities in income,...

Does trade improve institutions and contribute to long run growth? I develop a theory of trade, in which trade liberalization provides incentive to change institutions in two ways. On the one hand, trade leads to specialization according to comparative advantage, expanding the industries that do...