We argue that the global spread of ideas contributes to trade liberalization. Building on insights from a rich case-based literature, we suggest an explicit mechanism of trade policy diffusion: US-trained Ph.D. economists, who share a common belief in the benefits of free trade, and who operate with varying degrees of political influence around the world. We offer the first cross-national test ...

Recent analyses suggest that the impact of agricultural trade liberalization on developing countries will be very uneven. Some simulations suggest that the effects of agricultural trade liberalization will be small, overall, and are likely to be negative for a significant number of developing countries. The Doha Round focuses on tariff issues, but these countries currently have practically duty...

One of the longstanding questions in international economics is how to get a country with an economy mired in import protection to one characterized by free trade. Reciprocity and unilateralism are the two most popular answers that economists propose. Unilateralism, or “going alone” with trade liberalization, is the standard policy prescription for a small country that, by definition, cannot af...

BACKGROUND Trade and investment liberalization (trade liberalization) can promote or harm health. Undoubtedly it has contributed, although unevenly, to Asia's social and economic development over recent decades with resultant gains in life expectancy and living standards. In the absence of public health protections, however, it is also a significant upstream driver of non-communicable diseases ...

a r t i c l e i n f o We measure the effects of trade liberalization over the period of 1993–2002 on regional poverty levels in 259 Indonesian districts, and investigate the labor market mechanisms behind these effects. The identification strategy relies on combining information on initial regional labor and product market structure with the exogenous tariff reduction schedule over four three-y...

This paper provides an empirical test of how U.S. interests and the GATT regime affect the likelihood of cooperation. Specifically, I examine cooperation on the issue of agriculture trade policy liberalization. By disaggregating different features of negotiations, I demonstrate which institutional features are most important and how they change the political balance in countries that favor agri...

We examine the impact of capital account policies on FDI inflows. Using an annual panel dataset of 83 developing and developed countries for 1984-2000, we find that capital account openness is positively but only very moderately associated with the amount of FDI inflows after controlling for other macroeconomic and institutional measures. To a large extent, other country characteristics seem to...

Decades after trade liberalization, poverty among the developing countries has continued to rise as their economies adjust fierce and increasing external competition. This study investigates impact of 1988 reforms on in Pakistan using micro-level data from 1990 2005. Using feasible generalized least squares (FGLS) model panel setting address problem heteroskedasticity, we explored liberalizatio...

liberalization of energy price increases costs of agricultural inputs and costs of agricultural production. all these changes may affect the overall competitiveness of domestic products with similar foreign products. as a result of that, total cost of agricultural products are increased and profitability are decreased. in this paper, energy consumption for producing corn were calculated using c...