Hub-and-Spoke Free Trade Areas* This paper analyzes how the sequential formation of free trade areas affects the volume of trade between member countries. In a three--country, three-good model, if two countries have a free trade area, and both sign a similar agreement with the third, trade between the two decreases, and welfare rises in both. However, if only one of them signs an FTA with the t...

We explore the consequences of placing the Standard Model gauge fields in the bulk of the recently proposed localized gravity model of Randall and Sundrum. We find that the Kaluza Klein excitations of these fields are necessarily strongly coupled and we demonstrate that current precision electroweak data constrain the lowest states to lie above ' 23 TeV. Taking the weak scale to be ∼ 1 TeV, the...

A new gravity model with the function F (R) = (1/β) arctan (βR− βR) instead of the Ricci scalar in the Einstein–Hilbert action, describing inflation of the Universe, is suggested and analyzed. We obtain constant curvature solutions of the model in the Jordan frame. Performing the conformal transformation of the metric, the potential and the mass of a scalar degree of freedom in the Einstein fra...

This paper compares sequential trade liberalization through a preferential trade agreement (PTA) and one-shot multilateral trade liberalization with respect to the speed with which countries attain multilateral free trade. We build a three-country oligopoly model, including one developing country whose domestic firm initially uses old technology. Firm-level adoption of new technology and countr...

Common software release procedures based on statistical techniques try to optimise the trade-off between further testing costs and costs due to remaining errors. We propose new software release procedures where the aim is to certify that the software does not contain errors. The underlying model is a new discrete-time model similar to the JelinskiMoranda model. The decisions are based on a mix ...

Trade among Arab countries has been very weak despite previous efforts to engage into different forms of regional economic integration. Using the flexible framework provided by the Gravity Model, the paper gives an order of magnitude of the main factors often presented in explaining the weakness of inter-Arab Trade. The results of the model together with several indicators about export profiles...

This paper uses a static and dynamic gravity model of trade to investigate the link between German development aid and exports from Germany to the recipient countries. The findings indicate that in the long run German aid is associated with an increase in exports of goods that is larger than the aid flow, with a point estimate of 140 percent of the aid given. In addition, the evolution of the e...