This paper uses a structural gravity model to explore the regional trade and welfare impact of the EU Cohesion Policy Transport Infrastructure Investment programme estimated using a novel data-set of the Generalised Transport Costs for the EU regions at the NUTS2 level. The results indicate that...

The potential multilateralisation of government procurement commitments in regional trade agreements (RTAs) presents many issues and challenges. To what extent do RTAs go beyond the 2012 revised Agreement on Government Procurement (GPA), and how do they differ among trading partners? This report...

This paper presents new data on regulatory barriers affecting services trade within the European Economic Area (EEA), covering 25 EEA countries, 22 sectors and five years (2014-2018). Following the methodology of the OECD Services Trade Restrictiveness Index (STRI), qualitative information is...

This paper highlights the large contribution of services to the Brazilian economy and the under-exploited potential of services to sustain productivity gains and international competitiveness. The areas with the largest potential for regulatory reform include improvements in the general business...

This paper highlights India’s unique services export led growth path. Observing that Indian business services have helped manufacturers all over the world to become more efficient and productive, it raises the question how Indian business services can do the same for local manufacturers and...

Many regional trade agreements (RTAs) contain chapters and articles that are environmentally specific. However, Parties can elect to more broadly incorporate environmental objectives in their RTAs to address their environmental concerns in such agreements. This report investigates in what ways...

This report aims to test whether the inclusion of environmental provisions in Regional Trade Agreements (RTAs) has contributed to the improvement of environmental quality among the Parties to these agreements through empirical modelling and analysis. Three indicators are considered as a proxy...

Concerns are growing about policies and measures that restrict market access with the effect of “forcing” technology transfer. Efforts to target forced technology transfer are complicated by the sometimes blurred line between voluntary and mutually agreed upon technology transfers and that...

Cutting trade costs, especially those stemming from non-tariff measures, is a growing priority for policy makers. One way to achieve this is for countries to improve their co-operation on regulatory matters. An avenue open to governments is to include provisions related to international...

This paper presents indices of regulatory heterogeneity based on the rich information in the STRI regulatory database. The indices are built from assessing – for each country pair and each measure – whether or not the countries have the same regulation. For each country pair and each sector,...