Previous studies characterize some of the Former Soviet Central Asian countries (CACs) as “more open” (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan) and others as “more isolated” (Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan) depending on their trade-over-GDP level. Being an open or isolationist economy has...

Globalisation is associated with long periods of sustained economic growth and credit expansion, whereas major recessions tend to lead to falling trade and protectionism. I investigate this, using a model where an important component of trade is search by rms trying out new trade part- ners. To...

We investigate the theoretical relationship between wage concentration and international market integration. Access to imported varieties lowers the cost of intermediate inputs (“machines”) used to carry out production tasks, causing workers with different comparative abilities to be sorted...

Globalisation is associated with long periods of sustained economic growth and credit expansion, whereas major recessions tend to lead to falling trade and protectionism. The sensitivity of trade to global economic conditions is not simply driven by policy: rather, in a model of costly search,...

This note explores the value of search capital in interfirm matches in the outsourcing trade, by extending Rauch and Casella's (2003) framework to a dynamic model of matching and searching. On provisional calculations, the sunken cost of this search imposes a similar order of magnitude trade...

I investigate the imposition of a horizontal technical barrier to trade (HTBT) in a symmetric, cross-hauling duopoly. Tariffs and subsidies are ruled out, but, in the absence of a mutual recognition agreement, it is possible for governments to impose HTBTs, so long as firms apply different...

We investigate the merger decision between two firms in an outsourcing relationship, one upstream and the other downstream. The inter-firm relationship is subject both to ex ante matching uncertainty and to contractual efficiency issues. Cross-border merger is assumed to solve the latter...

We examine the geo-political and international spatial aspects of human rights (HR), using a purpose designed data-set. Applying tools from the spatial economics literature, we analyse the impact on a country’s HR performance of geographical proximity to its neighbours. Unlike previous...

By looking at post colonial trade relationships of the world countries for period of 1948-2006, Head and Mayer (HM [Head et al. (2010)]) conclude that a country's trade with the colonizer, typically, erodes by 60% after 30 years of independence. However, the CAR (Central Asian Republics(CAR)...

Globalisation is associated with long periods of sustained economic growth and credit expansion, whereas major recessions tend to lead to falling trade and protectionism. The sensitivity of trade to global economic conditions is not simply driven by policy: rather, in a model of costly search,...