This paper tests for one mechanism that can explain the existence of a language barrier to trade. Specifically, I ask if those industries that require more cross-border communication in order to export their products trade more between Canadian provinces that know the other's language(s). I find...

Gravity equations have been used for more than 50 years to estimate ex post the partial effects of trade costs on international trade flows, and the well-known - and traditionally presumed exogenous - "trade-cost elasticity" plays a central role in computing general equilibrium trade-flow and...

This paper uses directed bilateral flow data on multiple dimensions of economic integration to construct a composite index of regional integration outcomes covering 19 regions in various parts of the world. As a first step, the multidimensional indicator is used to rank regions according to...

What influences the adoption of transparency obligations in trade agreements, and what are its effects? This paper uses a new dataset on transparency provisions in over a hundred regional trade agreements (RTAs) to provide empirical evidence of the political economy determinants of international...

Countries embarking on trade negotiations are not only seeking increased market access, but also, reduced market opacity. This study distils the most progressive practices for promoting regulatory transparency in over one hundred regional trade agreements (RTAs) concluded by OECD and large...

We use data on Chinese manufacturing firms to study the connection between individual firm imports and firm export outcomes. Since our panel covers the years 2002 to 2006, we can use changes in import tariffs associated with China’s WTO entry as instruments. Our regression results show that...

There has been great focus in the recent trade theory literature on the introduction of firm heterogeneity into trade models. However, these models tend to rely heavily on symmetry assumptions and assume melting iceberg transport costs as the only form of trade restrictions. Moreover, a standard...

There has been great focus in the recent trade theory literature on the introduction of firm heterogeneity into trade models. This introduction has highlighted the importance of the entry/exit decision of firms in response to changes in trade barriers. However, it is typical in many of these...

Recent theoretical work suggests that the presence of foreign direct investment (FDI) lowers a country’s noncooperative Nash tariff. To test this hypothesis, we first adapt the theoretical model formulated by Blanchard (2010) to derive an intuitive, empirically testable equation. This equation...

The role of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in East Asia’s recovery from the recent global financial and economic crisis highlighted the PRC’s growing role as an engine of growth for the region. From the viewpoint of the PRC, there are many potential gains from entering into free...