The paper reviews the evidence of the impact of trade liberalisation on the economic performance of poor developing countries with respect to poverty reduction, the distribution of income within countries, the distribution of income between countries, trade and the balance of payments, and...

A major question in the globalization debate is whether outsourcing and offshoring activities are beneficial to the home country. This paper investigates the effects on productivity and trade from the perspective of transaction costs, using a recent theory on trade in tasks. A production...

We build and estimate a structural dynamic general equilibrium model of growth and trade. Trade affects growth through changes in consumer and producer prices that in turn stimulate or impede physical capital accumulation. At the same time, growth affects trade, directly through changes in...

Following gains during the 1990s, Canada's global market share of goods exports has declined markedly in recent years. In this regard, the constant market share analysis framework is used to decompose changes in Canada's global market share into competitiveness and structural effects over the...

A plethora of research activity on the relationship between a country’s export and economic growth has produced ambiguous and mixed results. We reinvestigate this relationship using the methodology of wavelets based correlation and cross correlation. Our results show that the relationship...

Canada has continued to lose market share in the United States since the Great Recession, beyond what our bilateral competitiveness measures (relative unit labour costs) would suggest. In this context, we have studied 31 non-energy export categories to assess their individual performance against...

This paper argues that SSA has derived a minimal growth benefit from trade because of what it exports and that the detrimental effect of primary commodity export dependence on SSA growth can be captured by two structural variables, natural barriers to trade (NBT, trade costs) and natural...

According to the Washington Consensus, developing countries’ growth would benefit from reductions in barriers to trade. However, the empirical basis for judging trade reforms is weak. Econometrics are mostly ad hoc; results are typically not judged against models; policies are poorly measured;...

This paper derives a Frankel-Romer instrument from a global trade matrix of 157 countries over the period 1990-2007, and deploys it to assess the relationship between international trade, domestic market potential, and income for the case of developing Asia, compared to the world average. The...

World trade contracted sharply in late 2008 and early 2009 following the deepening of the financial crisis in September 2008. This paper discusses the main mechanisms behind the global downturn in trade and its impact on euro area exports and competitiveness. It finds that the euro area was hit...