Article history: Received 21 September 2008 Received in revised form 15 February 2009 Accepted 25 March 2009 Available online 7 April 2009 A new measure of factor intensity and abundance from trade theory is utilized to predict potential trade and income redistribution between traditional and modern economies in the Gulf Cooperation Council. Differences in labor skill intensity and abundance su...

This paper suggests that the institutional basis necessary to support efficient intemational trade is provided not only by treaties among national governments but also by international coalitions of private agents. International commercial arbitration is an important example of these private coalitions. The paper reviews the provisions and the practice of international arbitration, and presents...

The enlargement of the European Union will bring many political, economical and structural changes on the Continent, which require careful and deep analysis to be made. This paper will grasp the enlargement of the European Union from the aspect of the trade pattern and trade specialization of six major European Union candidates; namely, Turkey, Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania, Poland and the Czech R...

According to the World Investment Report 2004, the structure of FDI has shifted towards services. Further, the composition of services FDI is also changing from trade and finance to such industries as electricity, water, telecommunications, storage and transportation. In the latter sector the value of FDI stock rose 16-fold between 1990 and 2002. Incorporating a transport sector dominated by mu...

This paper discusses the measurement of production and employment effects of trade policy, and more broadly the effects of economic integration and globalization. First, it provides a broad-brush overview of the ex-post literature linking trade to performance, such as measures of worker displacement, adjustment costs, and econometric evidence on trade and wages. It then defines structural impac...

This paper examines the composition of trade between the United States and eight Asian Pacific economies from 1962 to 1992. Analysis of the time series pattern of individual commodities at the SITC four-digit level reveals economically significant changes in the pattern of trade, reflecting changing comparative advantage based on changing factor proportions, technology transfer and product cycl...

A country’s suitability for entry into a currency union depends on a number of economic conditions. These include, inter alia, the intensity of trade with other potential members of the currency union, and the extent to which domestic business cycles are correlated with those of the other countries. But international trade patterns and international business cycle correlations are endogenous. T...

I present a theory of optimal multilateral trade agreements with public political shocks. I show that “forbearance” where one country withholds retaliation when its trading partner receives a shock is a feature of an optimal agreement. This provides a rationale for countries not acting on retaliatory rights granted under GATT. I show that there is a limit to forbearance allowable in a self-enfo...

This paper investigates the growth factors of EU regions in the 1990s. We test the hypothesis that regional growth is determined by endogenous growth factors, trade and technological catching-up in a growth accounting framework. Our estimations suggest that growth of EU regions is positively related to the accumulation of physical and human capital. Innovation activity as well as international ...

EU enlargement revives the debate around the participation to the EMU. We use a gravity model to see whether informal barriers have changed over a ten-year period covering the creation of the EMU, and whether their impact on European member countries’ agricultural and food trade has been modified. We find that it has led to lower information costs. We observe a diminishing marginal trade impact...