Recorded workers'remittances to developing countries have grown rapidly, to more than $100 billion in 2004, bringing increasing attention to these flows as a potential tool for development. But even these statistics are likely to significantly understate true remittances, as a large share is...

We study the effects of trade barriers and the persistence of past linkages on trade flows in the former Soviet Union (FSU). Estimating a gravity equation on 1987-1996 trade among and between nine Russian regions and fourteen FSU republics, we find that Russian regions traded 60 percent more...

This paper reviews the theoretical and empirical literature on regionalism. The formation of regional trade agreements has been, by far, the most popular form of reciprocal trade liberalization in the past 15 years. The discriminatory character of these agreements has raised three main concerns:...

We develop a political economy model where loss aversion and reference dependence are important in shaping people’s preferences over trade policy. The policy implications of the augmented model differ in three ways: there is a region of compensating protection, where a decline in the world...

00 - Overview RPPC -- 000 - FM RPPC -- 01 - Ch 1 RPPC -- 02 - Ch 2 RPPC -- 03 - Ch 3 RPPC -- 04 - Ch 4 RPPC -- 05 - Ch 5 RPPC -- 06 - Ch 6 RPPC -- 07 - Ch 7 RPPC -- 08 - Ch 8 RPPC -- 09 - Ch 9 RPPC -- 10 - Ch 10 RPPC -- 11 - References RPPC -- 12 - Index RPPC

While other emerging regions were thriving, MENA's aggregate export performance over the past two decades has been consistently weak. Using detailed firm-level export data from Customs administrations, this report explains why. One central finding is that the size distribution of MENA's...