Protection unconstrained by rules often varies substantially over time. Rules-based disciplines like OECD industrial tariff bindings negotiated under GATT since 1947 and new Uruguay Round bindings on agricultural and services trade and on developing country industrial tariffs, constrain this variability. We examine the theoretical effects of such constraints on the expected cost of protection a...

The central question addressed in this paper is whether the presence of the MFA made the NAFTA politically more acceptable. Assuming that the government maximizes a weighted sum of welfare and producer profits, we derive four key results. First, taking the initial level of trade restriction as exogenously given, it is possible for an FTA to be endorsed by both parties under the MFA-like quota i...

COMMERCIAL POLICY VARIABILITY, BINDINGS, AND MARKET ACCESS Joseph F. Francois and Will Martin Protection unconstrained by rules often varies substantially over time. Rules-based disciplines, like OECD industrial tariff bindings negotiated under GATT since 1947 and new Uruguay Round bindings on agricultural and services trade and on developing country industrial tariffs, constrain this variabili...

For centuries the nations and principalities of the world have engaged in trading schemes to boost exports. Conquest, protection of domestic supply through tariffs and eroding domestic currency are all part of the historic policy harem. The United States has a foreign trade zone program. Who knew? FTZs evoke images of women locked inside a dark sweatshop in a jungle making hoodies for football ...

background and aim: iron deficiency anemia is the most common micronutrient deficiency in the world today. it affects the lives of millions of women and children through contributing to poor cognitive development, increased maternal mortality and decreased work capacity.  because of the important role of iron in the physical and cognitive health, and for the universal consideration of eradicati...

many studies indicate that trade costs are large and significant. the question is whether trade costs could explain the size of the trade and shed light on the mystery of missing trade. in this framework, this paper studies 73 developing countries in the period 2005-2011. the results of our panel data analysis signify that “the pecuniary costs of trade” and “the number of necessary documents” a...

With the advent of cross-border electronic commerce, an increasing number of products that have been traded physically in the past are now imported digitally. This raises a number of issues, which are currently debated at the international level: should these products be defined as goods or services; which multilateral trade rules should govern them; and, should they remain tariff and tax exemp...

due to timely process of wto negotiations, unwillingness of advanced industrial countries to give concessions to developing economies regarding tariff and non-tariff barriers on agricultural commodity imports, the ongoing initiatives in northern hemisphere to establish new and wider free trading areas which will divert trade out of the market from asian countries, and ineffectiveness of deepeni...

A simple two-country model of economic geography is constructed in order to examine the effect of tariff competition on the spatial distribution of manufacturing activities as well as on welfare. We show that when the transport cost is sufficiently small, tariff competition with firm migration leads to a core-periphery economy, where one of the two countries imposes no tariff in Nash equilibriu...