There has been an ongoing trend towards increasing internationalisation of production over the past two decades or so. This implies that countries become more dependent on demand from foreign countries but also that countries and industries are able to source intermediates from different...

The recent economic downturn The decline in GDP during the recession has been concentrated in manufacturing and construction and triggered significant (though smaller) declines in basic services (distribution, hotels and restaurants, and transport). The decline in manufacturing production was...

Abstract In this paper we extend recent work using the Gravity Model to estimate the trade and price effects of Preferential Trading Agreements (PTAs), by explicitly taking into account the extent of the preferential access being provided by the importer. This involves specifying a trade model,...

Summary Industrial policies in the EU have markedly shifted towards ‘horizontal’ measures and framework polices. The sustained de-industrialisation of several European economies and a general perception that countries with a strong manufacturing base emerged from the crisis in a strengthened...

Our study extends the recent literature on the importer-productivity relationship to a firm-level dataset for sub-Saharan Africa. Using a cross-section sample of 3090 firms in 19 countries, we find that importers are more productive than non-importers. The observed importer premium is found to...

This paper examines productivity differences between internationally trading and non-trading firms using data on a sample of firms from 19 sub-Saharan African countries. The paper provides the first evidence of whether exporters, importers and two-way traders perform better than non-traders, and...

This paper adds to the small but growing literature that considers a relationship between the way a firm serves foreign markets and its subsequent performance. The current paper is the first to consider this issue for a sample of sub-Saharan African countries and includes data on both...

Innovation is considered to be an important determinant of performance at the firm, industry and country level. This view is supported by empirical evidence showing the importance of innovative activities on firm and industry performance and country growth rates. The majority of the world’s...

The dark side of the Balkans (the shadow economy in Southeastern Europe) (by Edward Christie and Mario Holzner) Are CEECs trapped in low-quality export specialization? (by Uwe Dullek, Neil Foster, Robert Stehrer and Julia Wörz) Do interest rate differentials determine the movements in the...

Trade and economic integration in the CIS an evaluation (by Vasily Astrov, Peter Havlik and Olga Pindyuk; pp. 1-3) Keywords trade, economic integration Countries covered CIS Topics International Trade, Competitiveness and FDI Volume and variety of intra-bloc trade in an expanded European Union...