Do WTO commitments reduce the risk of trade policy reversals? To address this question, we rely on the theoretical model of varying cooperative tariffs by Bagwell and Staiger (1990) to specify our empirical model for the probability of a tariff increase. We then study how WTO tariff commitments...

Using a dataset of 104 countries over a period from 1966 to 2004, this paper analyses the relevance of country specific shocks for income volatility in open economies. We show that exposure to country specific shocks has a positive and significant impact on GDP volatility. In particular, we find...

In the context of economic partnership agreements (EPAs) currently under negotiation between the European Union (EU) and African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries, trade is meant to be progressively liberalised in a reciprocal way as of 2008. EPAs are also intended to foster existing...