This paper provides a different basis than previous analyses for regional bloc formation and regional migration. Due to low bargaining power and fixed costs, small states face a severe disadvantage in negotiations with the rest of the world and might benefit by forming a regional bloc. The study...

This paper examines the impact on total factor productivity in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) and in other developing countries of trade-related technology diffusion from the North) (denoted by NRD), education, and governance, research and development The NRD value for a developing...

Schiff considers the policy options of the West Bank and Gaza with respect to trade and the export of labor services. He concludes that: • Nondiscriminatory trade policy is unambiguously superior to a free trade agreement with Israel. • The West Bank and Gaza should pursue a...

May 2000 - Two theories are combined to explain why free trade areas (FTAs) have proliferated more than customs unions (CUs) have, and why FTAs are found more in North-South agreements and CUs in South-South agreements. Schiff combines two theories - one about how multilateral trade...

November 1999 - Social capital raises productivity and falls with labor mobility. Because labor mobility generates a negative externality, integration of labor markets results in too much mobility, too low a level of social capital, and an ambiguous effect on welfare. Trade liberalization is...

August 1999 - Adherents of the natural trading partner hypothesis argue that preferential trade agreements are more likely to improve welfare if participating countries already trade disproportionately with each other. Opponents argue the opposite. Neither side is right. The hypothesis holds up...

"Mundell and Markusen each wrote classic papers on the relationship between trade and factor movement. Mundell showed that substitution holds in the Heckscher-Ohlin model. Markusen challenged the substitution result and showed in five different models that removing barriers to factor movement...

Small states should pursue unilateral and multilateral trade liberalization, and members of the African, Caribbean, and Pacifice (ACP) group should expand reciprocal agreements with the European Union (Cotonou Agreement) to the entire OECD. They should intensify South-South regional cooperation...