To understand the role of trade policies in the crisis of 2008, this paper constructs the overall trade restrictiveness indices for a wide range of countries using their tariff schedules in 2008 and 2009. The index summarizes the trade policy stance of a country, taking into account the share of...

As the economic crisis deepens and widens, fears of a return to the protectionist spiral of the 1930s become more common. However, an important difference between the 1930s and today is the existence of the World Trade Organization and the legal limits it imposes on the protectionist responses...

The database described in this article provides researchers with a broad set of data on trade, production, and protection for 28 manufacturing sectors at the three-digit level of the International Standard Industrial Classification, Revision 2. The database covers up to 100 developing and...

The database described in this article provides researchers with a broad set of data on trade, production, and protection for 28 manufacturing sectors at the three-digit level of the International Standard Industrial Classification, Revision 2. The database covers up to 100 developing and...

The author investigates the effects of a marginal tax reform on household welfare in Mexico. He estimates the extent to which Mexican households react to changes in prices, and uses the estimates to simulate changes in social welfare resulting from marginal tax reform. Results indicate that...

This study performs an ex-post analysis of the effects of the trade liberalization in Mexico between 1989 and 2000, taking into account regional differences in the Mexican economy. The effects of trade liberalization are first translated into changes in regional prices and wages. Those estimates...

To study the effects of tariffs on gross domestic product (GDP), one needs import demand elasticities at the tariff line level that are consistent with GDP maximization. These do not exist. The authors modify Kohli's (1991) GDP function approach to estimate demand elasticities for 4,625 imported...

Bilateral trade relationships between countries vary across products. Such heterogeneity poses challenges when assessing the economic impacts of trade agreements. This paper estimates bilateral trade elasticities at the product level and explores these impacts using a hypothetical no-deal Brexit...

Empirical evidence suggests that global trade reforms are unlikely to produce analogous results across countries, especially when analyzing their effect on poverty. This implies that the analysis of trade reform on social welfare cannot be generalized and needs to be conducted on a country by...

Madagascar's textile and apparel industry has been among the fastest growing in Sub-Saharan Africa. Fueled by low labor costs, a fairly productive labor force, and preferential access to industrial countries, Madagascar's exports of textile and apparel products grew from about US$45 million in...