China's sectoral trade composition, product quality mix, and import content of processing exports have all changed substantially during the past decade. This has rendered trade elasticities estimated using aggregate data highly unstable, with more recent data pointing to significantly higher...

Using the between-sector variation in income as a new measure of economic uncertainty, this paper proposes simple models and supportive empirical evidence for the causal relations between economic uncertainty and government size in the open economy setting. Key empirical findings include: (1) a...

This paper analyzes trade in the Caribbean community (CARICOM) using a gravity model framework. The paper seeks to shed light on the dynamics of trade among CARICOM member countries, as well with the rest of world over 1980–99. Overall, the results show that intra-CARICOM trade has increased,...

This paper examines the mechanisms through which output volatility is related to trade openness using an industry-level panel dataset of manufacturing production and trade. The main results are threefold. First, sectors more open to international trade are more volatile. Second, trade is...

It is a common practice that the National People's Congress releases law drafts to the society to solicit opinions. Such practice is called open door legislation. Based on cases and interviews, this paper examines whether and how the national legislature takes lawmaking advices from the general...