We measure the effect of governance on sovereign creditworthiness, as measured by sovereign credit ratings. Governance may affect the government's ability to raise tax revenue to service its debt, with poor enough governance leading to insolvency. Data for 1996-2005 indicate that countries with...

This paper constructs new measures of regional trading arrangement (RTA) membership based on the degree of integration and implementation. We find that RTAs create intra-bloc trade regardless of their type and that more integrated RTAs generate greater total trade creation