For over three decades Sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries have had an interest in regional integration initiatives to accelerate their industrialization and growth. The projects proposed to foster integration encompass a broad range of initiatives such as: (i) the development of regional ports to help African countries effectively utilize modern shipping technologies, and realize economies of ...

The paper studies the determinants of information sharing between Swedish tax authorities and 14 EU tax authorities for value-added tax (VAT) purposes. It is shown that trade-related variables (such as the partner country’s net trade position and population size), reciprocity, and legal arrangements are significant determinants of Sweden’s trade in tax information. Countries that are net export...

This paper examines interbrand competition between a domestic and a foreign manufacturer who market their products through intermediaries. The contracts manufacturers offer these intermediaries are endogenous. In equilibrium contracts may specify exclusive territories (ET), depending on the degree of substitutability between products and the level and degree of transparency of trade barriers. T...

Wage Setting in the Colombian Manufacturing Industry We show that wage setting in the Colombian manufacturing industry is not fundamentally driven by labor productivity in contrast to the standard theoretical prediction. On the contrary, internal institutional arrangements – payroll taxation, the minimum wage or the price wedge between manufacturing and consumption prices – together with a high...

Before the inception of the WTO, India generally did not pursue any regional economic agreement route to promote trade or to achieve any other goal. In the Post-Cancun Ministerial period, however, it has progressively entered into a number of preferential trade arrangements with several Asian, as well as nonAsian partners. Looking into India’s regional economic integration approach, the current...

During the past half-century, states have established a large number of international trade institutions, both multilateral and regional in scope. The existing literature emphasizes that these agreements are chiefly designed to liberalize and increase the flow of overseas commerce. Yet such institutions have another function that has been largely ignored by researchers, namely, reducing volatil...

am grateful to Mathew Tharakan for many helpful comments on an earlier draft and to Eric Reinhardt for providing a concise summary of his ongoing joint research on the Generalized System of Preferences. In addition to the references cited in the paper, this paper has benefited greatly from a number of websites that offer information on various EU preferential trade arrangements, especially thos...