This paper contributes to the debate on the existence of pollution haven effects by systematically measuring the pollution content of trade (measured by the pollution content of imports, PCI) and decomposing it into three components-a "deep" component (unrelated to the environmental debate but...

This paper explores how the elimination of Madagascar's Marketing Board in 1995 affected prices paid to farmers, incentives, and regional indicators of poverty and inequality. After steadily losing market share, Madagascar has been able to regain some of the lost ground since the mid-1990s....

With free trade areas (FTAs) under negotiation between Japan and the ASEAN Free Trade Area (AFTA) members and between the Republic of Korea and AFTA members, preferential market access will become more important in Asian regionalism. Protectionist pressures will likely increase through rules of...

With preferential trade agreements on the rise worldwide rules of origin—which are necessary to prevent trade deflection—are attracting increasing attention. At the same time, preference erosion for Generalized System of Preferences (GSP) recipients is increasing resistance to further...

The estimated coefficient of distance on the volume of trade is generally found to increase rather than decrease through time using the traditional gravity model of trade. This distance puzzle proved robust to several ad hoc versions of the model using data for 1962-96 for a large sample of 130...

To become operational, the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) must harmonize Rules of Origin (ROO) across Africa's Preferential Trade Agreements (PTAs) along two dimensions: regime-wide rules and product-specific rules. This paper describes and evaluates these ROO across the major...

African countries are negotiating the African Continental Free Trade Area with the aim to spearhead global value chain (GVC) trade among African countries as a driver for robust economic growth. This paper evaluates the participation of Sub-Saharan African Regional Economic Communities (RECs) in...

An explosion of different preferential rules of origin (PROO) has accompanied the spread of preferential trade agreements (PTAs) around the world. Complying with PROO requirements entail costs for producers, exporters, and customs officials. Observers, firms, customs officials, and policymakers...

The demand for accountability in aid-for-trade is increasing but monitoring has focused on case studies and impressionistic narratives. The paper reviews recent evidence from a wide range of studies, recognizing that a multiplicity of approaches is needed to learn what works and what does not....

This paper surveys the state of knowledge about the trade-related environmental consequences of a country's development strategy along three channels: (i) direct trade-environment linkages (overexploitation of natural resources and trade-related transport costs); (ii) 'virtual trade' in...