This study examines the effect of the Everything But Arms (EBA) trade preferences regime on exports from African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) Least Developed Countries (LDCs) to the European Union (EU). With this aim, an augmented gravity model is estimated for exports from the 79 ACP countries...

Trade economists traditionally study the effect of lower variable trade costs. While increasingly important politically, technical barriers to trade (TBTs) have received less attention. Viewing TBTs as fixed regulatory costs related to the entry into export markets, we use a model with...

While the regional economic integration encompassing the former Soviet Union (FSU) transpires to be inefficient, there appears to be a stronger interest in regionalism in smaller groups of more homogenous and geographically connected countries of the region, specifically, Central Asia. Using a...

The 2003 reforms of the Common Agricultural policy of the European Union introduced decoupled income transfers as the most prominent policy instrument. However, member states were given substantial discretion over the degree and timing of the reform implementation. As a result, different...

This paper studies to what extent individuals form their preferences towards trade policies along the lines of the Stolper-Samuelson logic. We employ a novel international survey data set with an extensive coverage of high-, middle-, and low-income countries, address a subtle methodological...

The Aid for Trade (AfT) initiative has gained much popularity since its launch at the World Trade Organization's Ministerial Conference in 2005, and there are ongoing discussions on its effectiveness and potential to improve the integration of developing countries into the world economy. This...

There have been ongoing discussions within the WTO Doha Round on Trade Facilitation and the wider Aid for Trade agenda to assist developing countries in reducing behind-the-border restrictions and to help them benefit from trade reform. Our paper contributes to this debate by analyzing the...

We examine the impact of revocation of tariff exemptions on exports of developing countries, using data from the cases of Competitive Needs Limits (CNL) built into the Generalized System of Preferences (GSP). CNLs are arguably imposed on super competitive GSP beneficiaries and aim to limit their...

International trade ows reveal strong persistence over time. This paper is concerned with the role of trade agreements in this persistent environment. The data reveal a high level of heterogeneity of the trade- creating effect along the trade volume and per-capita income distributions. If...

The objective of the paper is to explore and give an overview of two central policy alternatives to improve the integration between the European Union and developing countries by removing barriers to trade: trade preferences and trade facilitation. After reviewing the relevant literatures and...