The objective of this paper is to quantify Lobbying Effectiveness for trade policy. I introduce this measure into Grossman and Helpman’s (1994, American Economic Review 84: 833–850) model of protection-for-sale (PFS). Two alternate factors are suggested to explain differences in lobbying effectiveness across sectors; first, predisposition of the government to supply protection (owing arguably t...

Recent global initiatives on debt relief and development assistance call for increasing aid for trade to the poorest countries. We apply a multi-country computable general equilibrium model, to analyze if aid for trade offers the possibility that, instead of the developing and least developed countries’ being worse off—as so many were as the result of the last round of trade negotiations—they w...

This paper documents patterns in international trade costs in processed foods for a large cross-section of developing and developed countries, during the 1976-2000 period. A trade costs index is inferred from a micro-founded gravity equation that incorporates bilateral ‘iceberg’ trade costs. For 2000, the weighted average tariff equivalent of trade costs ranges from 73% for the North to 134% fo...

Using a simple general equilibrium model with two countries and two sectors including one manufacturing sector producing (vertically) differentiated products, we first show that an international barrier to trade in the manufacturing sector creates inter-industry trade, whereas an international barrier to trade in the other sector generates intra-industry trade among vertically differentiated pr...

in more recent years, it has become increasingly recognized that r&d; (research and development) is a key driver of economic growth, a source of innovation and change, and as such stimulates improvements in productivity and economic competitiveness. it is closely associated with knowledge and flexibility, two factors that have gained new significance as a source of competitiveness in an increas...

one of the unique characteristic of agricultural agreement is to order the countries to accept the commitments in three different areas such as domestic support, market access and export subsidy. although the main goal of this type of classification is the reduction of distortion interventions of trade, but indicates that the agricultural agreement has special attention to political tools again...

â â â  â â â â â â â â â â â  financial sector is one of the most influential sectors in economic activities. empirical and theoretical studies conducted in recent years have also confirmed the significant role of financial institutions in economic growth. additionally, trade and financial liberalization policies have been particular concerned with strategic policies in developed and developing...

An Empirical Analysis of Trade-Related Redistribution and the Political Viability of Free Trade Even if free trade creates net welfare gains for a country as a whole, the associated distributional implications can undermine the political viability of free trade. We show that trade-related redistribution increases the political viability of free trade in the US. We do so by assessing the causal ...

We explore the role of the ownership structure of capital in an economy that suffers from barriers to entry and an imperfect financial system. In such an environment, an unequal distribution of capital provides an explanation for trade flows and trade gains even when countries do not differ in relative factor endowments or available technologies. Moreover, an uneven asset distribution is associ...

This paper proposes to reexamine the GATT/WTO membership effect on bilateral trade flows, using nonparametric methods including pair-matching, permutation tests, and a Rosenbaum (2002) sensitivity analysis. Taken together in a coherent manner, these methods provide an estimation framework that is robust to misspecification biases, allows general forms of heterogeneous treatment effects, and add...