The scope and complexity of international trading arrangements in the Middle East, as well as their spotty historical record of success, underscores the urgent need for an adequate understanding of the relative costs and benefits of participation in preferential trading arrangements and, more...

Since 2005, donors and development agencies have increased the overall value of aid for trade and put in place several mechanisms to channel such aid and to ensure that it targets national priorities. This paper reviews recent trends in the allocation of aid for trade and analyses of its...

The literature on the relationship between economic diversification and development has grown rapidly in recent years, partly due to the surprising finding that diversification rises with gross domestic product per capita up to a certain point. Export diversification along the extensive margin...

There has been substantial research in recent years examining the regional evolution of economic growth across states in Mexico -- with a particular focus on the post North American Free Trade Agreement period. There is also a vast literature using cross-country regressions to examine...

This paper examines the impact of firm productivity and local industrial structure on firm entry and exit in Morocco between 1985 and 2001. There is strong evidence of productivity exerting a market-cleansing role. Less productive firms are found to be more likely to exit - and locations with...

Investment climate Surveys are valuable instruments that improve our understanding of the economic, social, political, and institutional factors determining economic growth, particularly in emerging and transition economies. However, at the same time, they have to overcome some difficult issues...

This paper examines the relationship between openness and within-country regional inequality across 28 countries over the period 1975-2005, paying special attention to whether increases in global trade affect the developed and developing world differently. Using a combination of static and...

For decades, agricultural price and trade policies in Sub-Saharan Africa have hampered farmers’ contributions to economic growth and poverty reduction. Although there has been much policy reform over the past two decades, the injections of agricultural development funding, together with...

A considerable literature has focused on the determinants of total factor productivity (TFP), prompted by the empirical finding that TFP accounts for the bulk of long-term growth. This paper offers a deeper reason for such focus: the welfare of a representative consumer is summarized by current...

The Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights negotiated in 1986 under the auspices of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, the institutional predecessor of the World Trade Organization, incorporated substantial and uniform protections of intellectual property...