Despite widespread anecdotal evidence that lower trade barriers increase international trade, there is little firm quantitative evidence of the ‘trade-cost elasticity’ of trade flows, one of the two key aggregate statistics that have recently been identified as sufficient to quantify the...

The article covers main stages of integration processes in the CIS area since its formation. We analyzed the specifics of preferential trade agreements (PTAs) in the CIS. We prepared an exhaustive list of expired and currently effective PTAs in the CIS area, taking into account the initial...

This paper is the first to systematically study the trade effects of economic integration agreements (EIAs) between the European Union -- one of the driving forces behind the recent explosion of EIAs -- and third countries. We thoroughly disentangle the ex post effects of these EIAs: 1) we allow...