This paper is an empirical investigation on the relationship between trade globalization and political liberalization. The sample is based on 157 countries from years 1957-1998, taking into consideration many social, economic, environmental, geographical, and historical factors. From this, an...

This paper shows how a world price shock can increase the likelihood that democratization must be used to resolve the threat of revolution. Initially, a ruling elite may be able to use trade policy to maintain political stability. But a world price shock can push the country into a situation...

How do foreign interests influence the policy determination process? What are the welfare implications of such foreign influence? In this paper we develop a model of foreign influence and apply it to the study of optimal tariffs. We develop a two-country voting model of electoral competition,...

This paper investigates whether political competition plays an important role in determining the level of agricultural protection. In order to do so, we exploit variation in political and economic data from 74 developing and developed countries for the post-war period. Our results robustly show...

Sub-Saharan Africa emerged in the past years as global epicentre of Islamist terrorism. The impact of terrorism on the economy has a negative bearing on the formal and a positive effect on the informal sector. Among other things, this is due to the poorly diversified development economies of...

Russia and China challenge the liberal order and rule of law on a global and regional level. The Trump administration has facilitated the support of the move away from the liberal international order and the "Westphalian" system of states that America had defended for centuries. Extremism is...

Sub-Saharan Africa emerged in the past years as global epicentre of Islamist terrorism. The impact of terrorism on the economy has a negative bearing on the formal and a positive effect on the informal sector. Among other things, this is due to the poorly diversified development economies of...

Russia and China challenge the liberal order and rule of law on a global and regional level. The Trump administration has facilitated the support of the move away from the liberal international order and the "Westphalian" system of states that America had defended for centuries. Extremism is...

The international discussion of Trump's dispute over import tariffs for steel, aluminum and even cars is so far focused on the big global players. However, African countries in particular could suffer too from the planned punitive tariffs, analogous to the famous African proverb, "When elephants...

In response to the widespread use of food safety standards as a tool for restricting international trade, this study attempts to answer whether Southeast Asian countries follow this protectionist trend or not. It employs the political economy framework and focuses on the case of the...