The ultimate goal of most European countries, especially of the Western Balkan countries, is to become full members of the European Union (EU). The mentioned countries are included in the Stabilisation and Association Process (with the Stabilisation and Association Agreement (SAA) as its main...

This paper illustrates how the work of the WTO's standing committees is fuelling regulatory cooperation between WTO members, and inspiring RTA negotiators. We explore, as a case study, how the WTO TBT Committee has shaped provisions on international standards in RTAs, and focus on the extent to...

Import regulations are globally the most prevalent form of intervention in international trade. The regulations should, under rules of the WTO, protect consumers and the environment but can be used to protect producers. We investigate the ambiguity of intent. We set out a model that when applied...

This paper presents a new measure of aggregate trade restrictions (MATR) using data from the International Monetary Fund's Annual Report on Exchange Arrangements and Exchange Restrictions. MATR is strongly correlated with existing measures of trade restrictiveness but is more comprehensive in...

With ever-increasing political tensions between China and Russia on one side and the EU and the US on the other, it only seems a matter of time until protectionist policies cause a decoupling of global value chains. This paper uses a computable general equilibrium trade model calibrated with the...

Multinational enterprises (MNEs) are increasingly dealing with challenges shaped by the new geopolitical and trade environments. Besides traditional tariffs, exporting firms need to comply with regulatory non-tariff measures (NTMs) in the form of technical barriers to trade (TBTs) and sanitary...

With ever-increasing political tensions between China and Russia on one side and the EU and the US on the other, it only seems a matter of time until protectionist policies cause a decoupling of global value chains. This paper uses a computable general equilibrium trade model calibrated with the...

In recent years, a number of studies have been put forth to assess the potential economic effects of the EU-US trade agreement – the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP). Most studies report gains for the TTIP-member states. However, the commonly applied CGE models contain...