his paper attempts to perform an empirical analysis of the effects of “labor clauses” provided in bilateral or plurilateral trade agreements (or regional trade agreements: RTAs) on working conditions that laborers in the RTA signatory countries actually face, using macro-level data for a...

This paper addresses the importance of establishing global value chains through the liberalization of trade in services. A database has revealed rather disconnected policy arrangements across APEC members in terms of service trade liberalization. While the economic benefits arising from...

This study provides data on the costs and challenges of implementing trade facilitation measures currently under negotiation in the WTO. It updates an earlier study undertaken in 2005, presenting data and insights from nine additional developing countries. The study confirms earlier findings...

Economists broadly agree on many key economic policy issues, but economics as a discipline has provided much less guidance on why and how economic policy reform occurs and how to develop institutional mechanisms that enable governments to adopt “good” economic policy. Political scientists...

Several initiatives have emerged for regional economic integration in the Asia-Pacific region. The United States has led the negotiations for the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement, and ASEAN countries have recently started to promote the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership. This paper...

This paper quantifies trade policy changes and the associated trade impacts for about 100 countries between 2008 and 2009. Results show that there has been no widespread increase in protectionism. Only a few countries, including Russia, Argentina, Turkey, and China, have increased tariffs on...

The TRIPS Agreement, which specifies minimum levels of intellectual property protection for countries in the WTO, has increased levels of patent protection around the world. Using variation across countries in the timing of patent laws and the severity of disease, we test the hypothesis that...

According to the Washington Consensus, developing countries' growth would benefit from reductions in barriers to trade. However, the empirical basis for judging trade reforms is weak. Econometrics are mostly ad hoc, results are typically not judged against models, policies are poorly measured,...

In a two-country Hotelling type duopoly model of price competition, we show that parallel import (PI) policy can act as an instrument of strategic trade policy. The home firm's profit is higher when it <i>cannot</i> price discriminate internationally if and only if the foreign market is sufficiently...

We analyze China's tariff rates at WTO accession using a political economy approach. A model drawing on Branstetter and Feenstra (<link/>) is used to derive an optimal tariff rate for each industry. The model predicts that a government would set a high tariff rate if an industry is of large stateowned...