The last technical barriers to trade(TBT) between countries are Non-Tariff Barriers(NTBs), meaning all trade barriers are possible other than Tariff Barriers. And the most typical examples are (TBT), which refer to measure Technical Regulation, Standards, Procedure for Conformity Assessment, Test & Certification etc. Therefore, in order to eliminate TBT, WTO has made all membership countries au...

There isn't nearly as much trade as standard models suggest there should be. Formal trade barriers and transport costs are too low to account for the difference. The pattern of missing trade has interesting variation across country pairs. These clues suggest the need for theoretical and eventually structural empirical work on the missing transactions costs. This paper reviews recent empirical f...

There is widespread evidence that geographical borders reduce trade. This paper presents a theoretical model capable of providing a succinct comparison of three broad forms of trade barriers involving i) trade costs, ii) localized tastes, and iii) information frictions. Despite being traditionally under-researched, it provides the stark finding that information frictions often provide the relat...

Recent trade policy debates have focused increasingly on the supposed barriers caused by di¤ering country regulations, and at proposed remedies such as mutual recognition agreements. There are several motives for setting minimum quality standards in an open economy. This paper examines the motive of correcting an undersupply of quality when an industry is monopolistic, and sets up a theoretical...

Existing research suggests that democracy fosters economic globalization by promoting trade liberalization in the developing world. We argue that democracy in developing countries generates a “skill bias” in trade protection where democratic incumbents have incentives to increase tariffs on high skilled goods but reduce trade barriers on low skilled goods. Our model analyzes how electoral compe...

Abstract: What explains the variation in trade policy among democracies in developing countries? Why have some liberalized trade more than others? We analyze the impact of political particularism – defined as the degree of party discipline and the incentives for politicians to cultivate a personal vote – on trade protection. We present theoretical results from a model of particularism and its e...

This paper reviews some of the recent advances in our understanding of the determinants of firms’ choices between trade and foreign direct investment (fdi) as means by which to serve their overseas markets. Over the past two decades, fdi has grown much more rapidly than trade flows. The great majority of these investment flows have been between developed countries with similar factor endowments...