This paper develops a political-economy model of price regulation. Firms' lobbying activity for a given regulatory status might generate a simultaneity problem between the effects and the determinants of regulatory decisions. We explicitly model this two way causality, and empirically test our...

This paper takes a welfare-view on eastern enlargement of the EU, focusing on incumbent countries. Enlargement is decomposed into three elements: Single-market integration on commodity markets, budgetary costs from EU-expenditure policies, and single market- induced migration from new to present...

The proliferation of regional integration agreements (RIAs) over the past several years has led to significant changes in the global configuration of trade and investment activity. Multinational enterprises now face the prospect of multilateral trade liberalisation that could significantly...

This article deals with the analysis of the positive side of the foreign direct investments in the World´s economy. The importance of this research is derived from the significant role that can be played by foreign investments in industrialized and developing countries. Some countries are still...

At the end of 2010 there are more than 100 new preferential trade agreements being contemplated. At the same time there are approximately 200 existing trade agreements whose provisions leave large additional potential gains from trade on the table. Despite these potential benefits, there appears...

India is the second largest producer of silk and also the largest consumer of silk in the world having a strong tradition bound domestic market. In this paper, growth functions were estimated for India’s aggregate production and trade parameters using annual data from 1984/85 to 2006/07. To...

In this paper we inquire why after more than 25 years of domestic agricultural reforms in Mexico and 15 years of trade liberalization of maize under NAFTA –a non-competitive crop and the major staple in Mexico–domestic production of this field crop has increased. We present new empirical...

We provide a comprehensive review of international cases where GM-free private standards set up by food companies in developed countries have influenced biosafety policymaking in developing countries. We find twenty-nine cases where private importers have directly or indirectly affected policy...

Market access in the WTO is highly fragmented due to exceptions from GATT principles. Tariff-rate quotas (TRQs) stand in contradiction to the principle of the GATT, according to which all quantitative restrictions in international trade should be eliminated. Bhagwati’s theorem of the...

This paper analyses the impact of quality based labelling on product prices,factor allocation and the resulting effects on producers within the context of aninternational trading system. A general equilibrium model, calibrated to 1998 data,describes United States and European Union labelling...