This paper draws on the neoclassical theory of international trade to examine the limits of efficient export diversification in low-income, commodity-exporting countries. It demonstrates the fundamental importance of relative factor endowments among countries for determining the commodity...

This paper examines the role of agriculture and rural development, in general, in the most successful countries of Asia, termed, by the World Bank, the "East Asian Miracle." The basic hypothesis of the paper is that agricultural growth and rural development play a vital role in the sustained...

Against the background of increasing interest in closer economic relations in the Middle East, the contribution that greater integration of markets might make to improving food security in the region is investigated, using a quantitative framework for gauging the reduction in instability of...

This paper examines the historical record of eight recent free trade agreements (FTAs). It also investigates the predictive power of two popular quantitative world trade models—the single-equation gravity model and the multiequation comput-able general equilibrium (CGE) model—as applied to...

This paper critically examines “new” evidence from the gravity model that indicates the majority of preferential trading arrangements (PTAs) today are predominantly trade diverting. This new evidence on trade diversion was presented in a recent Australia Productivity Commission (APC) working...

Despite petroleum's prominence in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), agriculture remains important to most to the region's economies. And more robust and more dynamic agricultural growth could significantly boost sustainable economic growth and rural development in those countries. An...