Search results for "Trade barrier"
showing 10 items of 30 documents
Rethinking Regional Competitiveness: Catalonia's International and Interregional Trade 1995-2006
2009
Studies of competitiveness tend to focus on a local economy's global interactions, particularly its international trade. But for countries that are at least mid-sized (such as Spain), interregional trade tends to be as large as or significantly larger than international trade. The case of Catalonia illustrates the importance of interregional flows in truly analyzing and devising strategies for a region's external competitiveness. Accounting for interregional trade changes and performing analyses of Catalonia's overall merchandise trade balance, which sectors generate external surpluses as opposed to deficits, and who Catalonia's key trading partners are, and the use of a gravity-model appro…
Assessing the Enlargement and Deepening of the European Union
2008
This paper estimates a theoreticallymotivated gravity model to examine the effect of the European Union (EU) on trade and whet her the order of entry has affected the trade performance of member countries. Additionally, we analyse the impact of the diffe rent phases of EU integration on trade. The results show that both original countries and successive enlargements boost intra-b loc trade. Moreover, the results suggest that the deepening in the integration process has led to more trade creation among members. Finally, only the latter ph ase of the European integration process (the single currency) has increased trade with non-members.
How Electoral Institutions Change the Influence of World Trade Integration on Trade Policies
2014
World integration levels influence opportunity costs of maintaining restrictive national trade policies. In an integrated world, restrictive trade policies are more costly than in a context of low overall levels of world market integration. We argue that policy makers can be expected to react to these varying incentives to liberalize the trade regimes of their countries, yet do so not in a uniform fashion across countries. Rather, the responsiveness to changes in levels of world trade integration is conditional upon the electoral system the country in question employs. This is due to the fact that opportunity cost considerations increase in importance with a) the degree to which policy make…
External effects of domestic regulations: comparing internal and international barriers to trade
2001
Abstract In a world in which barriers to trade at all levels—international and internal—are mostly a by-product of the implementation by governments of different regulatory policies to deal with “domestic” or “local” problems such as environmental degradation, health, and labor standards, the article purports to show how the mechanisms that are set in motion by the operation of competition among the governments inhabiting the different jurisdictional tiers of federal countries lead to outcomes that are different from those generated by the ‘agreed-upon’ rules that govern the relations of national governments with each other in matters of international trade.
A global perspective on effectiveness of aid for trade
2013
Recent global initiatives on debt relief and development assistance call for increasing aid for trade to the poorest countries. The paper applies a multi-country computable general equilibrium model to measure the effectiveness of alternative aid for trade categories. The findings show that aid for trade policies expand trade and alleviate international income inequalities in the recipient countries, that will benefit mainly from aid for trade adjustment and technical assistance.
The effects of competitiveness on trade balance: The case of Southern Europe
2016
AbstractAccording to conventional wisdom, “peripheral” Southern European members of the euro area (Greece, Italy, Portugal and Spain) suffer from a problem of competitiveness. Since their membership of the euro area renders devaluation impossible, adjustment should come through decreasing wages and prices in these countries, which, by improving the trade balance, should lead to a recovery of previous levels of employment and growth. In this paper, the authors estimate trade balance equations for the Southern European countries, both for total trade and for the trade performed with the European Union, taking three alternative measures of the real exchange rate, based on consumption price ind…
Measuring Globalization of International Trade: Theory and Evidence
2009
Measuring globalization requires a Standard of Perfect International Integration as a benchmark that a single world space would reach under conditions of geographic neutrality in international trade. We define this standard and present indicators for openness, connectedness and integration, for each specific economy, and for the world economy. We apply our indicators to data on trade flows for 59 countries for the 1967-2004 period. Results show that trade integration is higher than what traditional openness indicators suggest. Several economies find high levels of integration, but the low degree of openness in some large economies jeopardizes the progress of globalization. © 2008 Elsevier L…
Trade in final goods and the impact of innovation
2011
Abstract This paper analyses how innovations in imported final goods impact via terms of trade effects upon welfare growth in the domestic economy. It is shown that the impacts, although differing across countries, are quantitatively significant and worthy of further consideration.
Trade Liberalization and Heterogeneous Technology Investments
2015
We propose a trade model where heterogeneous firms decide on a productivity-enhancing technology investment. The model analyzes the impact of multilateral trade liberalization on firm- and industry-level productivity. Freer trade increases the incentives to invest in technology by raising export profits. It also dampens these incentives, however, as profits stemming from domestic sales are reduced. Only exporters benefit from the former positive effect. The shape of the distribution of efficiency draws, the level of trade costs and the technology intensity of the industry are key elements removing the ambiguities regarding the net impact of trade liberalization.
Impact on European Union Studies of the Developing EU Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreements with Third Countries: The Case of Canada
2015
The EU has signed an agreement in principle for a Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement with Canada, the first of its kind for the EU, entering into force in 2015, opening a renewed market access strategy for the EU and has initiated negotiations with the USA.