Using the methodology developed in Kehoe and Ruhl (2013), I measure the change in the extensive, or new goods, margin of trade between Austria and the ten new entrants to the European Union in 2004. On average, the new goods account for 56% of the bilateral trade flow after enlargement. A time series measure shows growth in the new goods margin coincides with the period surrounding the 2004 enl...

This paper discusses the measurement of production and employment effects of trade policy, and more broadly the effects of economic integration and globalization. First, it provides a broad-brush overview of the ex-post literature linking trade to performance, such as measures of worker displacement, adjustment costs, and econometric evidence on trade and wages. It then defines structural impac...

Mercosur has achieved important advances like the removal of intrabloc tariff and non-tariff barriers and the establishment of a common external tariff for most products. However, its ambitious plans to deepen the integration process comprising harmonisation of policies in areas like competition policy, government procurement, technical barriers and phytosanitary measures have not been implemen...

Using a simple monopoly model, we examine the effects of economic integration. We show that the number of markets and the shape of marginal revenue curves are crucial to evaluate economic integration when the marginal cost is not constant. The effects of tariff-reductions in a three-country model are in contrast with those in a two-country model. The effects also depend on what trade policy the...

We study the effects of government spending by using a structural, large dimensional, dynamic factor model. We find that the government spending shock is non-fundamental for the variables commonly used in the structural VAR literature, so that its impulse response functions cannot be consistently estimated by means of a VAR. Government spending raises both consumption and investment, with no ev...

This article reviews the performance of the World Trade Organization in the oversight of national regulatory decisions affecting agricultural and food trade. A picture emerges of modest international disciplines on the regulatory decisions of sovereign nations and the need for ongoing improvements. A road map to regulations is presented and empirical assessments of the effects of technical regu...

This paper discusses critically the links between trade and competition policies, starting with the empirical literature which suggests that liberal trade policies and tight competition policy are, in a loosely defined sense, substitutes. Next, the underpinnings for the “substitution” hypothesis in a strategic environment, whereby trade liberalization may reduce the incentive to enforce anti-tr...

We study how the sequential formation of free trade areas affects trade flows between member countries. In a three–country, three–good model of comparative advantage if two countries have an FTA, and both sign a similar agreement with the third, trade between the two decreases. However, if only one of them signs an additional FTA, a huband-spoke pattern arises, and trade between the initial mem...

Pre-tax car prices are particularly low in EU countries with high registration taxes but no car production, meaning that the tax is equivalent to an import tariff and induces international price discrimination. The paper develops a theorectical model to analyse the European Commission's policy of facilitating arbitrage and thereby reducing car price differences. The effects on prices, quantitie...

Much trade liberalization involves large and small countries. This paper presents a formal comparison of the economic welfare effects for the small and large country from unilateral free trade by the small country, from a free trade agreement, and from preferential access to the large country’s market. I show that it matters for the welfare effects of these strategies whether the small country ...