In this paper we attempt to quantify the incidence of different types of technical barriers to trade (TBTs) on trade structures between seven Central and Eastern European countries (Hungary, Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia, Bulgaria, and Romania) and the European Union at the...

In this paper I investigate the impact of a decrease in trade costs on firms' decisions to export. The main contribution of this paper is to evaluate empirically the theoretical predictions of several models of multi-product exporters. The focus is on the firm export entry decision and the...

This paper uses data on policy measures affecting services operation and trade to document and estimate the impact of different types of policy measures on services exports and imports, with a focus on Latin America and the Caribbean. It finds that market-entry measures are important to both...

This paper investigates the short-run effects of the uncertainties brought along with the Brexit referendum on the bilateral trade between Belgium and its main trading partners. I find that import and export markets have specific dynamics and react differently to changes in political uncertainty...

We construct an index of NTM transparency based on notifications to the WTO under the SPS and TBT agreements, the existence of a trade portal giving ready access to trade-relevant regulations, the existence of NTM data collected under the MAST classification, and the results of an experiment...

We estimate the effect of RTAs on bilateral exports by means of a gravity model analyzing its sensitivity to different specifications and methods. RTAs generate a sizable positive effect. However, shifting to country-pair and time-varying fixed effects systematically reduces coefficients....

Two issues stand out in this conversation. The first concerns the unfinished business of the global fight against the scourge of poverty, which impacts one region more than most: Africa. At the same time, a key pre-requisite for economic performance - affordable and efficient public...

Against the background of a changing landscape of trade and investment governance in the 21st century, characterised by the proliferation of deep preferential trade agreements (PTAs), this paper econometrically tests the importance of global value chain trade and regulatory differences in...

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...

As tariffs are increasingly being reduced, trade economists and policymakers have begun to emphasize the importance of reducing non-tariff trade costs to facilitate international trade flows. However, the measurement of trade costs and transport costs, in particular, is not an easy task. For...