Increasing moves away from multilateralism have created a fragmented trade and investment scenario where economies progressively combine the application of restrictive unilateral actions with bilateral and regional preferences. The application of, and exceptions to, the non-discrimination...

This paper presents descriptive evidence of specialisation trends and investigates empirically their causes and consequences, analysing the role of policies in this process. Then, based on the insights from the backward looking analysis, it draws global trade and specialisation scenarios up to...

Services play a more important role in trade and employment in the United Kingdom than in most other OECD countries. The UK services sector is supported by an open and transparent trade regime, policies that support competition and innovation, and regulatory transparency that facilitates the...

Services are an important part of global economic activity and of international trade. Nevertheless, compared to its very large tourism sector, the sector of high-end business services in Thailand remains small. As IT and information, and professional services are traded indirectly through value...

While services account for almost 80% of GDP in the United States and a growing share of global trade, regulatory barriers to services trade around the world are still high. Using a hypothetical liberalisation scenario, this paper assesses the potential reduction of trade costs that could be...

Theoretical and empirical studies on multi-product firms have shown that firms adjust their product mix in response to trade liberalisation. This paper uses the South African Revenue Service (SARS) and National Treasury (NT) firm-level panel to assess the response of South African firms to trade...

In 2016, the People’s Republic of China removed its support prices for maize and started destocking its large public reserves of maize. This paper investigates what would happen if China were to also eliminate its support prices for rice and wheat and reduce its public stocks of these two...

Ever since the early 20th century, Argentina has failed to fully reap the benefits that integrating into the world economy can offer. With exports and imports only accounting for less than 30% of GDP, Argentina is significantly less integrated into the world economy than other emerging market...