We construct comprehensive and comparable indices on the most relevant components of economic infrastructure. An unobserved components model is employed to cover the largest possible number of developing and developed countries over the period 1990-2010. We map major findings from the new...

We estimate gravity-type models to assess the effects of financial market development in the host and source countries on bilateral FDI stocks. We address potential reverse causality, inter alia by performing instrumental variable estimations and restricting the sample to observations where...

Making use of considerably improved measures of infrastructure, we assess the impact of infrastructure on bilateral trade for a panel of 37 developed and emerging economies during the period 1995-2011. We find significant and non-linear effects of overall infrastructure and infrastructure in...

When an investor sues a state for alleged breaches of its obligations under an investment treaty or a trade agreement with investment provisions, all that should matter for who wins the case are the merits of the claim itself. Alas, investor-to-state dispute settlement (ISDS) does not take place...

Estimating two-step selection models, we find that more democratic governments are more likely to conclude preferential trade agreements (PTAs) and to agree to stricter investment provisions related to pre-establishment national treatment and investor-state dispute settlement in PTAs. This is...