It has been emphasized that international promotion activities such as state visits or the presence of embassies, consulates and export promotion agencies help foster trade when there are search costs and/or uncertainty. In this paper we try to disentangle the differential effect that foreign...

The continued rise in oil prices since 2002 has resulted in a significant increase in export revenue for oil exporting countries. This increase in the price of oil and other commodities means that OPEC countries and Russia have received, between 2003 and 2006, a windfall of 1.3 trillion dollars...