The authors examine the changes that Mexico's textile and clothing industry is likely to face under the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). They compare pre-NAFTA and probable post-NAFTA scenarios for Mexican exports. The U.S. clothing and textile industry is likely to remain among the...

In the policy environment prevailing before implementation of the Uruguay Round results, exports from developing countries face significant nontariff measures in industrial countries. Based on 1992 trade flows, the import coverage ratio of nontariff measures on this trade was more than 18...

This paper compares the impact of distance, a standard proxy for trade costs, on eBay and offline international trade flows. It considers the same set of 62 countries and the same basket of goods for both types of transactions, and finds the effect of distance to be on average 65 percent smaller...

As the economic crisis deepens and widens, fears of a return to the protectionist spiral of the 1930s become more common. However, an important difference between the 1930s and today is the existence of the World Trade Organization and the legal limits it imposes on the protectionist responses...

The theoretical literature on trade follows two different approaches to explaining the endogenous formation of customs unions: 1) The terms-of-trade approach, in which integrating partners are willing to exploit terms-of-trade effects. Using the terms-of-trade approach, one concludes that...

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...

As each new round of multilateral trade negotiations approaches, there is a demand for a negotiating rule that would give credit for autonomous (unilateral) liberalization. The authors show that the feasibility, and desirability of such a rule depend on when it is instituted. A credit rule...

The authors provide a new approach to the evaluation of pre-shipment inspection (PSI) programs as ways of improving tariff-revenue collection and reducing fraud when customs administrations are corrupt. They build a model highlighting the contribution of surveillance firms to the generation of...

This paper explores the extent to which discrimination against foreign applicants in the trademark registration process can be used as a"behind-the-border"barrier to imports. Prima-facie evidence shows that in some developing countries the ratio of trademark registration to applications is much...

Exporters'performance in a particular market may affect their future exports to the rest of the world. Importers may base their future transaction decision on the information revealed by exporters'past performance in other countries. Similarly, exporters acquire valuable information on foreign...