This paper seeks to establish empirically that institutions matter to financial markets. To this end, I look at the impact of five different regional trade agreements (RTAs) on a composite of four different financial instruments that account for default risk on sovereign debt in developing countries. As expected, some of the agreements have a stronger impact on default risk than others. Althoug...

We estimate the relationship between productivity and trade for a panel of countries over the period 1980 to 2000 using instrumental-variables estimation of a productivity equation. We note that some estimates of productivity gains attributed to trade capture instead the roles of institutions and geography. The endogeneity of trade and institutional quality is accounted for by using instruments...

Recent models of international trade have identified product quality as an important determinant of bilateral trade flows. Yet relatively little is understood about the relationship between the characteristics of the export market and the quality of products. In this paper we examine this link using Chinese data. We find evidence that product unit values vary with standard gravity variables in ...

the objective of this study was to examine the effects of the fluidized-bed drying me-thod on the final quality of two varieties of iranian rice, medium- and long grain. the re-sults were compared to that of paddy drying using a traditional method. rough rice was treated in the fluidized bed drier at 140ºc for 2 minutes. similar samples were dried for 8-10 hrs by the traditional method. dried s...

many researchers and authorities in the field of international relations agree on the issue that one of the factors to make relations between and among governments in through traders and exchanging goods among people of different lands, and as human societies develop in different fields, the economic affair and trades of these countries expand and develop, as well.  thus, they, in turn, have ha...

We present a theory of why some countries negotiate trade agreements during economic downturns. We argue that political leaders can gain from such agreements because of the signals they send to their publics. Publics are less likely to blame leaders for bad economic conditions when they have implemented sound economic policies, such as signing and implementing agreements designed to liberalize ...