In a three-country model of endogenous trade agreements, we study the implications of the Most Favored Nation Clause (MFN) when countries are free to form discriminatory preferential trade agreements (PTAs). While PTA members discriminate against non-member countries, MFN requires non-members to...

We demonstrate that durable MFN tariff elimination affects trade patterns through several layers, and magnitudes of effects are sizable. The WTO Information Technology Agreement's (ITA) unique setting allows us to overcome the challenges associated with identifying effects of non-discriminatory...

International migration is maybe the single most effective way to alleviate global poverty. When a given host country allows more immigrants in, this creates costs and benefits for that particular country as well as a positive externality for individuals and governments who care about world...

Under extraterritorial sanctions the sanctioning country extends its policies to trade of third countries with the sanctioned country. A prominent example is former US President Trump's decision to leave the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), a multilateral agreement with Iran. The...

Banking regulation invites banks to gamble when buying government bonds that regulators consider to be risk-free. The adverse effects on financial stability are known. In turn, this study shows that governments have an incentive to use banking regulation in order to enhance their fiscal...

This paper scrutinizes the effects of investor-state dispute settlements (ISDS) and national treatment provisions in a two-period model where foreign investment is subject to domestic regulation and a holdup problem. It shows that ISDS can mitigate the holdup problem and increases aggregate...

Legal conflicts between multinational firms and host governments are often decided by international arbitration panels - as opposed to courts in the host country - due to provisions in international investment agreements known as Investor State Dispute Settlements (ISDS). Critics fear that ISDS...

The Brazil-Taxation dispute concerns the complaints taken to the World Trade Organisation by the European Union and Japan against seven different Brazilian industrial subsidy programmes. One concerned the automotive sector and represents a clear case of policies dictated by strong domestic...

We study the procompetitive effects of trade policies against a foreign oligopoly in a model of vertical product differentiation. We show that a uniform tariff policy like the Most Favored Nation (MFN) clause is always welfare superior to free trade because of a pure rent-extraction effect....

Regional trade agreements have proliferated in the past two decades while multilateral trade negotiations have stalled. Both these agreements are governed by the WTO and have to abide by the non-discriminatory (Most-Favored Nation, MFN) clause to varying degrees-regional agreements to a lesser...