We examine the relationship between entry regulation and the business interests of former President Ben Ali's family using firm-level data from Tunisia. Connected firms account for a disproportionate share of aggregate employment, output and profits, especially in sectors subject to...

Using disaggregated bilateral trade data, we find that the elasticity of trade to distance increased (in absolute value) by about 10% since 1985. To explore the reasons for this shift, we decompose the change in the distance elasticity of trade into the part due to a shift in the composition of...

We determine how time delays affect trade, using newly collected data on the days it takes to move standard cargo from the factory gate to the ship in 98 countries. We estimate a difference gravity equation and find that each additional day that a product is delayed prior to being shipped...

We examine the effect of regionalism on unilateral trade liberalization using industry-level data on applied most-favored nation (MFN) tariffs and bilateral preferences for ten Latin American countries from 1990 to 2001. We find that preferential tariff reduction in a given sector leads to a...

Does regionalism negatively impact non-members? To answer this question, we examine the effect of regional trade agreements (RTAs) on imports from non-members and the tariffs that they face. Using data from six RTAs in Latin America and Europe, we do not find evidence that implementation of the...

We examine the relationship between openness and per-capita income using cross-country data from 126 countries. We find that trade leads to a higher standard of living in flexible economies, but not in rigid economies. Business regulation, especially on firm entry, is more important than...

This article reviews the theoretical and the empirical literature on regionalism. The formation of regional trade agreements has been, by far, the most popular form of reciprocal trade liberalization in the past 15 years. The discriminatory character of these agreements has raised three main...

We develop a political economy model where loss aversion and reference dependence are important in shaping people's preferences over trade policy. The policy implications of the augmented model differ in three ways: there is a region of compensating protection, where a decline in the world price...

Recorded workers' remittances to developing countries reached $167 billion in 2005, bringing increasing attention to these flows as a potential tool for development. In this paper, we explore the determinants of remittances and their associated transaction costs. We find that recorded...

While intermediates comprise the majority of total goods trade in the European Union (EU), their share of total trade has remained flat since 1996. This implies that EU enlargement has had a limited effect on the size of Factory Europe. However, enlargement coincides with an increase in Factory...