This paper provides an in-depth examination of the trade effects of three regional trade agreements (RTAs) – the ASEAN Free Trade Agreement (AFTA), the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) and the Southern Cone Common Market (MERCOSUR) -- in the agricultural sector. Results...

The aim of this paper is to disentangle the effects of trade liberalisation during the mid-1980s from the liberalisation involved in the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) on exports, imports and the balance of payments in Mexico. The main empirical results suggest that the trade...

Firms need to incur substantial sunk costs to break in foreign markets, yet may give up exporting shortly after their first experience, which typically involves very small sales. Conversely, other new exporters shoot up their foreign sales and expand to new destinations. We investigate a simple...

A paradox in international trade is that multilateral trade liberalisation has resulted in increases in both the volume of world trade and the amount of foreign direct investment (FDI). This note presents a Cournot duopoly model with two regions, each consisting of two countries, and with an...

Trade liberalisation in Southeast Europe (SEE) has been strongly promoted by the European Union (EU) in recent years, as part of its initiatives aimed at stimulating regional cooperation among the SEE countries. The Stabilisation and Association Process launched in 1999 for the five countries of...

This paper reviews the theory of foreign direct investment (FDI), focusing on an apparent conflict between theory and recent trends in the globalized world. The bulk of FDI is horizontal rather than vertical, but horizontal FDI is discouraged when trade costs fall. This seems to conflict with...

Current trade policies of European Union and United States stresses establishing free trade arrangements (FTAs) with partners all over the world with special emphasis to developing countries. Besides geo-political aspects, the most important motivation include improvement in foreign market...

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...

This paper analyses a North-South model in which the Southern labour market is decomposed into skilled labour and unskilled labour. The skilled labour is an intermediate input produced with capital and unskilled labour. The South is a net receiver of foreign capital from the North. The terms of...

The paper analyses the efficiency and the distributional effects of eliminating a tariff in a protected sector, in a Heckscher-Ohlin model of trade with costs of adjustment. The tariff can be eliminated at the onset or after a while. In case of postponing it the government may pre-announce the...