With growing consumer concerns about the environmental and social impacts of their purchases, some multinational corporations (MNCs) have begun publishing lists of their first-tier and other upstream suppliers with varying levels of detail and analysis in Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)...

This paper presents quantitative projections on the expected economic impact of the Investment Facilitation for Development (IFD) Agreement, which proceeds in three steps. First, we estimate the empirical impact of the host-economy investment facilitation environment on foreign affiliate sales....

In this descriptive paper, we focus on the sectoral composition of trade balances and their evolution since the 1970s, through the aggregation of millions of data points for goods and services. We use a "tree" approach, from global to regional, and from regional to sectoral and finally country...

The Most-Favoured-Nation (MFN) principle has historically been instrumental in promoting stability and equitable trade conditions. In recent decades there has been a rise in bilateral and regional trade agreements, which deviate from the MFN principle in providing more favourable tariff...

We employ the WTO Global Trade Model (GTM) to generate quantitative projections on the expected long-run impact of digitalization on global trade patterns. Five trends are modelled: (i) adoption of artificial intelligence which raises productivity growth; (ii) digitalization reducing trade...

This paper examines the evolution of global merchandise trade, between 2010 and 2022, assessing the share of imports subject to regional trade agreements (RTAs). A key question for us is whether the share of merchandise trade subject to preferences has kept pace with the proliferation in RTAs....

This paper explores the application of Natural Language Processing (NLP) techniques to automate Harmonized System (HS) tariff line transposition, employing a three-stage process: unique 1:1 tariff code matching (Round 1), exact description matching (Round 2), and "smart" description matching...

On average, wages of female workers are lower than wages of male workers. In this paper, we explore to what extent a gender bias in trade costs explains this gender wage gap and how different policy reforms could lower it. First, we analyse the relation between various types of trade costs and...

As digital trade becomes an increasingly vital component of the global economy, identifying the impact of wider international cooperation on digital trade issues becomes a growing policy imperative. This paper seeks to provide a quantitative analysis of the potential economic impacts of...

This paper introduces the Trade Policy Activity (TPA) Index, a novel indicator measuring evolving global trade policy dynamics since the Global Financial Crisis. Using a Dynamic Factor Model on comprehensive trade policy data covering 197 countries and territories, we document a structural shift...