We consider bilateral trade problems subject to incomplete information on the reservation values of the agents. We address negotiations where the communication of proposals takes place though the filter of a third party, a mediator: traders submit proposals over continuous time to the mediator that receives bids and keeps them secret until they are compatible. A Robust regular equilibrium (RRE)...

This paper studies bilateral trade in which the seller makes a hidden investment that influences the buyer’s hidden valuation. In general it is impossible to implement both first-best efficient trade and efficient investment using budgetbalanced trading mechanisms. The paper fully characterizes the constrained efficient contracts. It is shown that the optimal tradeoff between allocative efficie...

The argument that stringent environmental regulations are generally thought to harm export flows is crucial when determining policy recommendations related to environmental preservation and international competitiveness. By using bilateral trade data, we examine the relationships between trade flows and various environmental stringency indices. Previous studies have used energy intensity, abate...

Current models of bilateral trade neglect the effects of income distribution. This paper addresses the issue by accounting for non-homothetic consumer preferences and hence investigating the role of income distribution in the context of the gravity model of trade. A theoretically justified gravity model is estimated for disaggregated trade data (Dollar volume is used as dependent variable) usin...

We study the bilateral trade problem: one seller, buyer and a single, indivisible item for sale. It is well known that there no fully-efficient incentive compatible mechanism this problem maintains balanced budget. design simple robust mechanisms obtain approximate efficiency with these properties. show even minimal use of statistical data can yield good approximation results. then demonstrate ...

While the debate on whether countries should or should not sign trade agreements with selected partners continues, governments have significantly stepped up the rate at which they enter into such agreements. A number of such agreements have been signed lately and many more are under negotiation. Multinational firms get impacted by these agreements irrespective of whether these are beneficial to...

Hayakawa, Kazunobu—How serious is the omission of bilateral tariff rates in gravity? This paper presents a constructed dataset of worldwide bilateral tariff rates to explore the seriousness of omitting bilateral tariff rates from gravity equations. Results indicate, first, that omitting bilateral tariff rates presents no serious issue related to the omitted variable bias because coefficients fo...

Since the establishment of diplomatic ties between China and Korea in 1992, the bilateral economic and trade relations developed rapidly, two nations have become important trade partner and investment object country each other. Especially entered into 21st century, as the continuous changes of the world economic pattern and rising tide of regional economic cooperation, the Sino-Korea free trade...

In this paper, we first describe the characteristics of the World Trade Organization (WTO) that are the basis of the framework of the multilateral trading system. We then provide an overview of concepts of fairness in trade agreements. Thereafter, we offer a critique of the efficiency criterion in assessing multilateral trade agreements, taking issue with T.N. Srinivasan’s (2006) analysis and t...

In this paper, we first describe the characteristics of the World Trade Organization (WTO) that are the basis of the framework of the multilateral trading system. We then provide an overview of concepts of fairness in trade agreements. Thereafter, we offer a critique of the efficiency criterion in assessing multilateral trade agreements, taking issue with T.N. Srinivasan’s (2006) analysis and t...