A global oil price decline since the second half of 2014 has negatively impacted the economies of GCC countries, which heavily depend on the oil and gas sector. This led to a decline in trade surpluses and undermined current account balances, resulting in a slowdown of economic growth in these...

We analyse trade between countries of the Council of Mutual Economic Assistance in Eastern Europe between 1950 and 1990. Despite central planning and political motivation of the CMEA, we show that trade could be explained by standard demand factors surprisingly well. Moreover, we document that...