This paper provides an analytic discussion of China's complex foreign trade regime and suggests policy reforms. The paper pays special attention to the implementation of national trade policies at provincial and city levels. This is important for understanding developments in China's external...

One side of the debate about anti-dumping argues that dumping is not a problem in international trade - that it is a normal business practice which benefits the importing country's consumers and user industries - and that anti-dumping is inherently protectionist. The other side argues that an...

At the Davos forum of January 2014, a group of 14 countries pledged to launch negotiations on liberalizing trade in"green goods"(also known as"environmental"goods), focusing on the elimination of tariffs for an Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation list of 54 products. The paper shows that the Davos...

Fernandes explores Colombian trade policy from 1977-91, a period of substantial variation in protection across industries, to examine whether increased exposure to foreign competition generates plant-level productivity gains. Using a large panel of manufacturing plants, she finds a strong...

The methodological problems associated with standard partial equilibrium models may impart a significant bias in their projections of the trade effects of tariff cuts. First, these models fail to account for the price-raising effects of nontariff barriers (NTBs) that shift the supply curve for...

The authors focus on the evaluation of the antidumping regime from 1988 through 2003. During these years the Brazilian economy had to cope with several periods of macroeconomic instability and overvaluation of the domestic currency, particularly from 1990-92 and 1994-98. As a result, from 1992...

By explicitly accounting for the interaction between importers and corrupt customs officials, the author argues that setting trade tariff rates at a uniform level, limits public official's ability to extract bribes from importers. If the government's main objective is to raise revenues at the...

The authors provide a new approach to the evaluation of pre-shipment inspection (PSI) programs as ways of improving tariff-revenue collection and reducing fraud when customs administrations are corrupt. They build a model highlighting the contribution of surveillance firms to the generation of...

Economists often argue that the level and structure of a country's trade barriers and the quality of its governance policies (for example, regulating foreign investment or limiting commercial activity with red tape) have a major influence on its economic growth and performance. One problem...

Most interesting results on the welfare effects of regional arrangements are ambiguous at a theoretical level. Many questions only have quantitative answers that are specific to the particular structural features of the economy and the policy considered. So, to determine the impact of...