This paper compares the development of the institutions for regulation of the natural gas transportation systems in the United States and the European Union. Given the fact that these systems are technically similar, it addresses the question why regulatory institutions in the US and the EU have...

From its establishment in 1967, ASEAN has relied more on diplomacy rather than law. Political relations were managed by consultation and consensus and declaratory statements, while treaties denoting binding legal obligations were few. However, upon its 40th anniversary in 2007, the ASEAN Charter...

Since the early 1950s Latin American countries have made systematic efforts to foster regional transactions. Nevertheless, the indicators of relative importance of regional trade remain well below the corresponding figures in other regions. This paper argues that a process of integration should...

Extensive research has demonstrated the existence of large potential welfare gains from trade facilitation—measures to reduce the overall costs of the international movement of goods. From an equity perspective an important question is how those benefits are distributed across and within...

Greater integration into the international economy is a key means through which countries in the Middle East and North Africa can reap the benefits of already existing market opportunities to accelerate economic growth and job creation. An effective economic integration strategy requires...

The disagreements between the old and new trade powers in the WTO on market access issues that have deadlocked the Doha Round are in part a reflection of the “special and differential treatment” that developing countries have historically pursued in the WTO. A re-thinking of that approach is...

In 2011 the World Bank Group (WBG) issued a new trade strategy. This identifies the primary axes for WBG engagement and support activities and areas where action is likely to have the greatest positive impact in terms of helping developing countries to integrate further into the world economy...

Network neutrality is often mistakenly assimilated with the non-discrimination of Internet usage. Although this rough view is acceptable at first sight, as far as blocking of content or clearly anti-competitive discrimination are concerned, it becomes confusing at second sight, when the...

As the share of wind power in the electricity system rises, the limited predictability of wind power generation becomes increasingly critical for operating a reliable electricity system. In most operational & economic models, the wind power forecast error (WPFE) is often assumed to have a...

In classical party democracy, elections serve as an 'instrument of democracy' (Powell 2000): they are the mechanism to connect policy preferences of the electors (within the electoral arena) to the political production (within the legislative arena). At the European level the linkage seems to be...