A country or firm's position in the value chain will largely depend on its comparative advantage, and therefore the mix of skills and resource endowments it brings to international production. For some, this might initially involve specialising in the labour intensive segments while others may...

Over the past decade, an increasing number of economies have resorted to regional trade agreements (RTAs) as a means to further the market-opening and rule-making agenda. In this context, this paper addresses the question as to whether and how selected elements of RTAs could be used as...

This study analyses the relationships between competitiveness in manufacturing and the quality of key supporting services. Three indicators of competitiveness are considered: the degree of product differentiation, unit prices obtained in export markets and the duration of trade. The density of...

What influences the adoption of transparency obligations in trade agreements, and what are its effects? This paper uses a new dataset on transparency provisions in over a hundred regional trade agreements (RTAs) to provide empirical evidence of the political economy determinants of international...

Countries embarking on trade negotiations are not only seeking increased market access, but also, reduced market opacity. This study distils the most progressive practices for promoting regulatory transparency in over one hundred regional trade agreements (RTAs) concluded by OECD and large...

The proliferation of preferential trade agreements has posed challenges for the multilateral trading system. But regional trade agreements (RTAs) also allow countries to develop and strengthen trade disciplines beyond what is possible at the multilateral level. In some instances, RTAs explore...

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...

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 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...

Divestment by multinational enterprises is an important yet understudied phenomenon. The few available estimates indicate that about a fifth of all foreign affiliates are divested every five years. This paper presents the findings from a novel cross-country firm-level dataset with financial and...