When looking at the conditions of trade in natural resources the world appears upside down: Tariff protection in natural resources sectors is generally lower than for overall merchandise trade, while export restrictions are twice as likely as in other sectors. On the other hand, tariff...

In particular, the ability to export on time is crucial to explain comparative advantage in intermediate goods. These findings underscore the importance of investing in infrastructure and fostering trade facilitation to boost a country's participation in production networks. Furthermore, we...

This paper investigates the scope for international rules to address market failures in trade in natural resources and the associated international transactions of prospecting and investment in resource exploitation. We argue that several market failures are likely to have substantial costs....

The main objective of this paper is to analyse trade flows and tariff policies of health products. Compared to previous studies, we not only focus on medicines, but on a large set of products that enter the public health space and can be identified in the common trade classification. The first...

This paper studies the relationship between export policy and food prices. We show that, when individuals are loss averse, food exporters may use trade policy to shield the domestic economy from large price shocks. This creates a complementarity between the price of food in international markets...

This paper estimates the determinants of labour productivity in European NUTS regions during 1989-1996. Unlike previous studies, which have focussed either on local technological capabilities or on agglomeration economies, we compare three potential explanations of regional advantages:...

Does trade affect the equilibrium rate of unemployment? To theoretically examine this question, we incorporate firm-union bargaining considerations into a model with a booming external sector and a stagnating manufacturing sector. In the model, a sustained improvement in the terms of trade...

Standards and technical regulations which govern the admissibility of imported goods into an economy raise costs of exporters entering new markets, and may have a particularly high impact on firms seeking to export from developing countries. Yet standards may also have a positive side, such as...

Die deutsch-russischen Wirtschaftsbeziehungen haben sich seit den 1990er Jahren fast unbemerkt von der (medialen) Öffentlichkeit positiv weiterentwickelt. Russland wurde zwar als G8-Mitglied und eines der wichtigen Schwellenländer der BRIC-Gruppe wahrgenommen, mehr Aufmerksamkeit genoss...

[Einleitung und Fragestellung] Die Expansion des Welthandels hat in den vergangenen Jahren spürbar an Tempo verloren, nicht nur absolut gesehen, sondern auch in Relation zum Wachstum der weltwirtschaftlichen Produktion. Expandierte er im Zeitraum 1992 bis 2000 noch um durchschnittlich 8% pro...