a r t i c l e i n f o In this paper, we use a linked employer–employee database from Brazil to evaluate the wage effects of trade reform. With an aggregate (firm-level) analysis of this question, we find that a decline in trade protection is associated with an increase in average wages in exporting firms relative to domestic firms, consistent with earlier studies. However, using disaggregated, ...

Labor market consequences are at the forefront of most debates on the merits of trade liberalization. Preferential trade agreements (PTAs) have become the primary form of trade liberalization in most countries, and several studies have shown that discriminatory and nondiscriminatory trade liberalization can lead to very different outcomes. Yet to date there has not been any attempt to study the...

Available online 8 October 2011 We examine the effects of trade and services liberalization on wage inequality in India. We find that labor reallocations and wage shifts attributable to liberalization account for at most 29% of the increase in inequality between 1993 and 2004, and that the effects of services reforms are many times larger than those of trade liberalization. In contrast, 30–66% ...

Concerns regarding the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) have raised awareness about the negative public health impacts of trade and investment agreements. In the past decade, we have learned much about the implications of trade agreements for public health: reduced equity in access to health services; increased flows of unhealthy commodities; limits on access to medicines; and constrained policy...

A rapid expansion of trade liberalization in Thailand during the 1990s raised a critical question for policy transparency from various stakeholders. Particular attention was paid to a bilateral trade negotiation between Thailand and USA concerned with the impact of the 'Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Rights (TRIPS) plus' provisions on access to medicines. Other trade liberalization effec...

This paper discusses a quantitative simulation analysis on the impact of Japan’s FTAs in Asia using a CGE model of global trade. It has been argued that a regional FTA would be a step toward global trade liberalization rather than a final goal. In fact, it is shown that changes in sectoral trade balance and production would vary according to the partners in Japan’s FTAs in Asia deviating from t...

This paper discusses critically the links between trade and competition policies, starting with the empirical literature which suggests that liberal trade policies and tight competition policy are, in a loosely defined sense, substitutes. Next, the underpinnings for the “substitution” hypothesis in a strategic environment, whereby trade liberalization may reduce the incentive to enforce anti-tr...

There has been an unprecedented trade liberalization which started in the mid1980s in a wide spectrum of developing countries. In the same period, there have also been considerable changes in the tax structures of countries. This paper uses panel data on 65 countries, including 16 Middle East and North Africa (MENA) countries, for the period 1980–1997 to examine how tax structures responded to ...