There is little disagreement among most economists that countries benefit from trade liberalization. Yet, whether unilateral, multilateral (through the World Trade Organization) or through regional integration agreements (RIAs), trade liberalization has been one of the most controversial economic issues of our time. It is the focus of everyone from politicians to union leaders and anti-globaliz...

M economists accept that, in the long run, open economies fare better in aggregate than do closed ones, and that relatively open policies contribute significantly to development. Many commentators fear, however, that in the shorter run, one of the steps towards openness—trade liberalization— harms poorer actors in the economy, and that, even in the longer run, successful open regimes may leave ...

We argue that the global spread of ideas contributes to trade liberalization. Building on insights from a rich case-based literature, we suggest an explicit mechanism of trade policy diffusion: US-trained Ph.D. economists, who share a common belief in the benefits of free trade, and who operate with varying degrees of political influence around the world. We offer the first cross-national test ...

One of the longstanding questions in international economics is how to get a country with an economy mired in import protection to one characterized by free trade. Reciprocity and unilateralism are the two most popular answers that economists propose. Unilateralism, or “going alone” with trade liberalization, is the standard policy prescription for a small country that, by definition, cannot af...

Title of Dissertation: Essays on Inequality and Reforms: Evidence from India Utsav Kumar, Doctor of Philosophy, 2007 Directed By: Assistant Professor Nuno Limão, Department of Economics Economic reforms along with its promise of increasing income and growth rates have also raised concerns about its distributional implications. These concerns are at the heart of the arguments of those who oppose...

This brief explores the potential of Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) to deepen services trade liberalization, and boost flows, productivity, economic growth for its members.

Since the late 1980s, Mexico has launched an extensive process of economic liberalization that culminated with the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in 1994. Since then, Mexico’s economy has been issuing in a constant fl ow of international trade. During this process, the internal structure of the economy has altered patterns in terms of the composition, size, and geographic location ...

— Mexico’s college premium rose in the 1990s. Studies employing structural decomposition analyses treat the college premium as the relative price of “skilled” to “unskilled” workers. They find that reallocations of labor across industries and occupations cannot account for rising college premiums, and often attribute them to widely observed trade-induced increases in skills demand within the ma...