Major changes have occurred in the structure of former centrally planned economies, including a sharp rise in the share of services in GDP, employment, and international transactions. However, large differences exist across transition economies with respect to services intensity and services...

The authors analyze the extent to which the EU-15 and 16 transition economies used the WTO General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) to commit to service sector policy reforms. They compare GATS commitments with the evolution of actual policy stances over time. While there is substantial...

This paper analyzes Zambian export patterns using a new transaction-level trade data set for the period 1999-2011. The data show that, in international comparison, Zambian exports are exceptionally concentrated (on mining products). This reliance has been increasing in recent years. Zambia's...

This paper uses a theoretically grounded model of international trade to estimate the cross-border tradability of services. The resulting indices cover up to 99 countries and ten sectors. The results show that information and communications technology capital and legal institutions are...

This paper shows that networked trade in parts and components is more sensitive to the importing country's logistics performance than is trade in final goods. In the baseline specification, the difference between the two trade semi-elasticities is around 45 percent, which suggests that the...

The authors show in this paper that increasing the transparency of the trading environment can be an important complement to traditional liberalization of tariff and non-tariff barriers. Our definition of transparency is grounded in a transaction cost analysis. The authors focus on two...

The authors present a new database of minimum distance road routes connecting 138 cities in 27 countries across Europe and Central Asia. They use it to show that improved road network quality is robustly associated with higher intraregional trade flows. Gravity model simulations suggest that an...

This paper reviews recent progress and indicators of trade facilitation in member countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. The findings show that import and export costs vary considerably in the member countries, from very low to moderately high levels. Tariff and non-tariff...

The authors test the hypothesis that product standards harmonized to de facto international standards are less trade restrictive than ones that are not. To do this, the authors construct a new database of European Union (EU) product standards. The authors identify standards that are aligned with...

This paper finds that a 1 percent reduction in the cost of exporting or the cost of international transport is associated with an export diversification gain of 0.3 percent or 0.4 percent respectively. Lower domestic market entry costs can also promote diversification, but the elasticity is...