among the main factors of friendly commercial and political relations between safavid iran and india were reciprocal needs and policies of safavid kings concerning trade development. thus, various regions of iran, especially isfahan, had became a good market for indian goods. isfahan as a capital of safavid state was a centre of commercial activities of such indians as baniyans, multanians, and...

agriculture has a key role to play in reducing poverty and hunger in many developing countries. about 75% of the world's poor live in rural areas and most are dependent on agriculture and related activities in the rural economy. for this reason the benefits for developing countries’ farmers have been shown to be substantial if oecd member countries reformed their agricultural policies. the issu...

am grateful to Mathew Tharakan for many helpful comments on an earlier draft and to Eric Reinhardt for providing a concise summary of his ongoing joint research on the Generalized System of Preferences. In addition to the references cited in the paper, this paper has benefited greatly from a number of websites that offer information on various EU preferential trade arrangements, especially thos...

That free trade allows an economy to achieve the highest possible welfare in an ideal world is one of the few undisputed propositions in the economics profession. Yet, in reality, there is virtually no country that practices free trade. There are roughly three types of (not mutually-exclusive) reasons that explain why trade barriers are so prevalent. First, there are theories that show restrict...

In this paper we study the optimal import policy in an oligopolistic market with a given number of quantity-setting firms. In the absence of fixed costs, we show that if the policy instrument is an import quota, the optimal policy is either free trade or autarky, while if the instrument is a tariff the optimal policy is neither free trade nor autarky. In the case of fixed costs, we show that co...

Consider a small developing economy with a manufacturing sector opened to international trade, and an agricultural sector having limited, not to say any, access to world markets. We modify the Grossman and Helpman’s influence-driven model of trade policy formation to allow for an endogenously determined wage rate in a three-sector economy where the manufacturing sector can lobby policy makers f...

The 21”’ century continues a trend of rapid growth in both international trade of forest products and a concern for forests. These two trends are connected. Forces causing trade growth are linked to the loss of native forest resources in some countries and the accumulation of nonnative forest resources in other countries. Factors increasing trade include relaxation of trade barriers, income gro...

• Changes in employment, prices and social expenditures are three pathways linking trade and gender • Trade liberalisation may have positive or negative impacts, but there are risks for women • Trade reforms must be complemented by social and labour policies to ensure that women can take full advantage of the new economic environment L inks between trade, growth and poverty reduction are under ...

There have been very substantial reductions in the trade policy and other barriers inhibiting developing country participation in world trade. Associated with this has been a dramatic shift in the pattern of developing country trade, with a shift away from dependence on commodity exports to much greater reliance on manufactures and services, and greatly increased importance of exports to other ...