In the wake of high and rising oil prices since 2003, the member states of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) have seen dynamic economic development, enhancing their role in the global economy as investors and trade partners. Real GDP growth has been buoyant, with non-oil activity expanding...

Over the past decade, sound macroeconomic policies and an improved business environment have helped generate relatively strong GDP growth. Investments in infrastructure are improving connectivity and trade integration has been facilitated by lower tariffs. Simplification in opening of...

We estimate the variety gains of trade in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania following the fall of the iron curtain more than a quarter of a century ago. We apply the methodology of Feenstra (1994); Broda and Weinstein (2006); Ardelean and Lugovskyy (2010) and Soderbery (2015) to domestic and...

Drawing on the 2018 update of OECD’s Inter-Country Input-Output (ICIO) database, this paper explores the evolution of trade in value added (TiVA) between 2005 and 2015. Changes in international production systems are examined with particular attention given to four key sectors heavily...

This paper provides an initial assessment of the shipbuilding industry in the context of global value chains by presenting new descriptive evidence on value added generation and sourcing patterns of intermediate inputs for ship construction of major shipbuilding economies. The findings reveal...

This paper uses “centrality” metrics to reflect the changing structure of Global Value Chains (GVCs), contrasting central hubs and peripheral countries and sectors, and examine how these changes impact firm productivity. Using cross-country firm-level data from ORBIS, the paper finds that...

This paper examines the impact of one transmission channel for the economic effects of a shift from offline to online consumption: cross-border trade costs. We use data on cross-border e-commerce between EU Member States to estimate the implied cross-border trade cost reduction when consumers...

This paper presents an innovative database of domestic and bilateral online services trade between 39 countries, including the US, the EU and some emerging market economies. It combines monetized and "free" online services in a single measure based on the volume of page views on websites of...

This paper examines the economic impact of a change in retail technology - the shift from offline to online shopping - and a change in policy - measures to reduce the barriers to online trade perceived by consumers and retailers. Contrary to the prevalent micro-economic partial equilibrium...

We analyse determinants of an enterprise's decision to offshore R&D activities using a novel data set for enterprises in Ireland over the period 2001-2006. Our results suggest that, on average, other things equal, enterprises integrated in international production and innovation networks, and...