The objective of this paper is to provide indicators of trade restrictiveness that include both measures of tariff and nontariff barriers for 91 developing and industrial countries. For each country, the authors estimate three trade restrictiveness indices. The first one summarizes the degree of...

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...

Actual, and potential competition is a powerful source of discipline on the pricing behavior of firms with market power. The authors develop a simple model that shows that the effects of new entry, and import competition on industry price-cost markups, depend on country size. The authors...

This paper assesses the foreign lobbying forces behind the tariff preferences that the United States grants to Latin American and Caribbean countries. The basic framework is the one developed that is extended to explain the relationship between foreign lobbying and tariff preferences. Results...

The short-term impact of Brexit on goods exports is assessed using the Overall Trade Restrictiveness Index of the United Kingdom's major trading partners. The analysis shows that in the short run, leaving the European Union may cause the United Kingdom's exports to the European Union to decrease...

This paper builds a tractable partial equilibrium model to help explain the role of trade preferences given to developing countries, as well as the efficacy of various subsidy policies. The model allows for firm level heterogeneity in demand and productivity and lets the mass of firms that enter...

The results of this paper challenge the conventional wisdom in the literature that productivity plays no role in the economic development of Singapore. Properly accounting for market power and returns to scale technology, the estimated average productivity growth is twice as large as the...

Productivity, and the Rybczynski effects of factor endowments, have been highlighted as the two main reasons behind the growth of newly industrializing economies in East Asia. However, empirical studies at the aggregate level, do not find support for these claims. Focusing on Singapore's...

China has defied the declining trend in domestic content in exports in many countries. This paper studies China’s rising domestic content in exports using firm- and customs transaction-level data. The approach embraces firm heterogeneity and hence reduces aggregation bias. The study finds that...

The authors present a model of endogenous growth in which the main engine of economic development is knowledge. Using a two-sector closed economy model that comprises of a conventional goods-producing sector and a research and development sector, their model incorporates two key aspects of...