In the last decades the interaction between labour standards and international trade has assumed new importance. We use an incentive based-approach to assess the efficiency of trade policy instruments and private schemes for the promotion of international labour standards in Southern Firms. We...

Estimations of gravity equations specified in logarithm generally conclude that the distance elasticity of trade has increased over time despite globalization. In contrast, building on Santos Silva and Tenreyro (2006), this elasticity is estimated to have been stable around 0.65-0.70 since the...

This paper examines how import penetration affects firms' productivity growth taking into account the heterogeneity in firms' distance to the efficiency frontier and country differences in product market regulation.

The paper explores the evolution of export diversification patterns along the economic development path. Using a large database with 156 countries over 19 years at the HS6 level of disaggregation (4'991 product lines) we look for action at the “intensive” and “extensive” margins...

The “distance effect” measuring the elasticity of trade flows to distance has been to be rising since the early 1970s in a host of studies based on the gravity model, leading observers to call it the “distance puzzle”. We review the evidence and explanations. Using an extensive data set...

Alternative approaches to estimating the effects of non-tariff measures (NTMs) on trade flows are discussed and evaluated critically. Recent econometric studies point to three results: (i) NTM restrictiveness measures based on an aggregate of ‘core' NTMs are more restrictive than existing...

We present a spatial international trade model, GEO, which computes transportation costs bynot treating markets as dimensionless points and explicitly represents capacity shortages andinvestment decisions in new production capacities. We link it to CEMSIM, a partialequilibrium model of the world...

This paper explores the evolution of OECD imports over time and as a function of income levels, measuring the concentration of those imports across origin countries at the product level. We find evidence of diversification followed, in the very last years of the sample period (post-2000), by a...

The starting point of this paper is given by country situations where trade liberalization is expected to be poverty and inequality alleviating in the long run while inducing a short run increase in poverty or in inequality. The question we ask is what are the distributive aspects of trade which...

The relationship between trade liberalization and inequality has received considerable attention in recent years. The primary purpose of this paper is to present new results on the sources of wage inequalities in manufacturing taking into account South-South (S-S) trade. Globalization not only...