The increasing competitive pressures from both global and domestic markets are forcing nations to adopt new trade practices and standards. Nations need to adjust to new methods of trade information exchange, open up their telecommunications systems and learn to take full advantage of harmonized procedures, standards, and practices for trade documentation. The role of electronic commerce and ele...

We analyze whether merger policy will be used to create global players, i.e. firms that are more competitive in world markets. In a model where firms in two countries serve their respective domestic markets plus a world market, we consider when a cost-reducing merger will be beneficial for the firms, the home country, and the world as a whole. National merger policies will generally be too rest...

In a recent paper Helpman, Melitz and Yeaple (2002) argue firm heterogeneity leads to self-selection in the structure of international commerce. Only the most productive firms find it profitable to meet the higher costs associated with FDI; the next set of firms find it profitable to serve foreign markets through exporting; while the least productive firms find it profitable to serve only domes...

Broadly speaking, interventions to reduce the costs associated with price volatility can be divided into two types. First, there are interventions that reduce price volatility, such as improving market information (Box 7). Second, there are interventions that accept price volatility as given and attempt to cope with it. These coping mechanisms can be either before (ex ante) or after (ex post) t...