There is a stark contrast between the ambitious investment promotion efforts of many least developed countries (LDCs) and their often minimal commitments under the General Agreement on Trade in Service (GATS). At a time of urgent need to address domestic infrastructure and investment gaps, this...

This paper studies the effect of regional trade agreements on firms' exports. Using detailed information on the content of trade agreements and firm-level exports for 31 developing countries between 2000 and 2020, the analysis shows that the depth of trade agreements matters for the export...

I evaluate India's transition from an inward-oriented development strategy to greater participation in the world economy. While tariff rates have decreased significantly over the past decade, India is still one of the more autarkic countries. Despite improvement over the past in export...

This paper uses highly disaggregated trade data to investigate geographic and product diversification patterns across a group of developing nations for the period from 1990 to 2005. The econometric investigation shows that the gravity equation fits the observed differences in diversification...

This paper assesses the impact of the 2005 multilateral Hong Kong Ministerial decision on duty free quota free (DFQF) market access for products originating in Least developed countries (LDCs) on the latter's export performance. The analysis is conducted over a sample of 41 LDCs, with data...

Global Value Chains (GVCs) have become a central topic in trade and development policy but little is known about their actual impact on economic performance because data availability has been limited. Using a new unique set of Inter- Country Input-Output tables with extensive country coverage, I...

This paper studies how a positive export shock - the sharp increase in garment-sector exports that began at the end of the Multifibre Arrangement (MFA) - spread through Bangladesh's labor markets. Although the end of the MFA was arguably exogenous to Bangladesh, we instrument export demand with...

Have regional trade agreements (RTAs) improved market access conditions for developing countries? Using disaggregated panel data for a sample of 45 developing country exporters, 60 export destinations, and the period between 1991 and 2015, it is shown that this question can generally be answered...

I evaluate India's transition from an inward-oriented development strategy to greater participation in the world economy. While tariff rates have decreased significantly over the past decade, India is still one of the more autarkic countries. Despite improvement over the past in export...

This paper studies how a positive export shock - the sharp increase in garment-sector exports that began at the end of the Multifibre Arrangement (MFA) - spread through Bangladesh's labor markets. Although the end of the MFA was arguably exogenous to Bangladesh, we instrument export demand with...