This paper explores the relationship between the rhetoric of the Lisbon Goal of the EU and key insights from trade theory and growth theory. It argues that the policy initiative as such is valid, but the paradigm of international competitiveness is potentially misleading. The focus should,...

EU--US trade disputes have recently caught much attention, because they have involved lasting non-compliance coupled with WTO-authorized retaliation. A recent paper by Breuss (2004) shows that the outcome in most cases has probably involved economic damage on both sides. Does this testify to a...

We argue that compensating losers is more difficult for immigration than for trade and capital movements. While a tax-cum-subsidy mechanism allows the government to turn the gains from trade into a Pareto improvement, the same is not true for the so-called immigration surplus, if the...

Recent literature has argued that, contrary to the results of a seminal paper by Rose (2004), WTO membership does promote bilateral trade, at least for developed economies and if membership includes non-formal compliance. We review the literature in order to identify open issues. We then develop...

We present a multi-sector CGE model featuring forward looking investment and savings behavior within an intertemporal optimization framework. Thus, the model captures several of the intertemporal effects of commercial policy that have been stressed by recent literature on current account...

Eastern enlargement of the EU promises gains, but also imposes fiscal costs on incumbent countries. A sensitive issue concerns immigration, jobs and wages. We address these issues in a general equilibrium framework, both analytically and through numerical simulations. Analytical results identify...

Germany exhibits a strong reduction in domestic manufacturing production depth (bazaar effect). I argue that this reflects an unbundling of comparative advantage. Using a model where Ricardian plus Heckscher-Ohlin-type comparative advantage relates to fragments of production, I compare a trading...