This paper identifies the most restrictive limit that rules of origin can enforce and still continue to guarantee gains from trade for free trade area formation in general settings. Many commonly used rules of origin exceed this condition in practice. Second, free trade areas generally involve...

Using a novel common econometric specification, we examine the measurement of three important effects in international trade that historically have been addressed largely separately: the (partial) effects on trade of economic integration agreements, national borders, and bilateral distance....

We consider an international cartel whose members interact repeatedly in their own as well as in third-country segmented markets. Cartel discipline-an inverse measure of the degree of competition between firms-is endogenously determined by the cartel’s incentive compatibility constraint (ICC),...

Trade and investment can be effective means of implementation of the 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda. However, stand-alone trade and investment liberalization policies aimed at enhancing economic development may have negative side-effects on non-economic facets of sustainable development. As...

We investigate to what extent the probability that a Specific Trade Concern (STC) is raised in the WTO against a Member in a given sector is affected by past reductions in applied tariffs. Employing an identification strategy based on “new measures”, we find evidence of a substitution of...

Purpose – This paper explains why free trade agreements (FTAs) are more popular than customs unions (CUs) in respect of tariff coordination. Design/methodology – This paper employs an equilibrium theory of trade agreements with tariff coordination. I set up three-country partial equilibrium...

This paper uses a differentiated-good model to study the welfare effects of Regional Integration Arrangements (RIAs). It shows, on the one hand, that an expansion of a regional grouping always unambiguously hurt those that are left out even if the external tariffs of the RIA remain constant. On...

The objective of this paper is to examine the effects of political asymmetries on a FTA and a CU. I have shown that either a higher lobbying sensitivity to the foreign firm or a more susceptibility of politicians to lobbying are sufficient to lead to a higher tariff protection at the individual...

The marginal costs based representation of firm productivity in the Melitz [Melitz, M.J., 2003. The impact of trade on intra-industry reallocations and aggregate industry productivity. Econometrica 71 (6), 1695-1725] model, predicts positive exporter productivity premia. We show that this...

Ausgangspunkt dieser Arbeit ist die Behauptung, dass der migrationspolitische Diskurs zu wenig auf die internationale Integration von Gütermärkten Bedacht nimmt. Die Debatte wird weitgehend arbeitsmarktökonomisch geführt, wobei der sogenannte immigration surplus für das Zuwanderungsland und...