The system of global agricultural and food trade is undergoing rapid processes of change, with important implications for economic development. In this paper we document and discuss these changes; including the rapid growth and structural change in agri-food trade, the increased consolidation in...

What is the value of the WTO Committee on Agriculture? How much trade do countries talk about at the WTO? Do low-income countries participate less than they should in the work of the Committee? How important are issues not covered by notifications? What are the most important issues on which to...

Disruptions to global value chains (GVCs) - caused by conflicts, natural disasters, and accidents that close transport routes - and that affect specific regions or sectors, are not unusual. However, in recent years and amid the Covid-19 pandemic, they have become more frequent and severe. High...

In this study, we investigate three trade policy scenarios: i) the revival of multilateralism, ii) plurilateral cooperation, and iii) geopolitical rivalry. In the first scenario, both tariffs and NTMs are reduced on a multilateral basis. In the second scenario, varying groups of countries...

The WTO Trade Facilitation Agreement (TFA) has been predicted to bring about an expansion in trade flows and real income gains. To date, there is still very limited empirical evidence on the actual post-implementation impact of the TFA. This paper provides an assessment, combining econometric...

We combine econometric estimation with quantitative modelling to generate projections on the trade, GDP, and emissions effects of a potential trade liberalization agreement in energy related environmental goods (EREGs) and environmentally preferable products (EPPs). Trade liberalization can...

In this paper, we project the impact of the implementation of a Joint Statement Initiative (JSI) on Services Domestic Regulation (SDR). We proceed in three steps. First, we include the WTO SDR Index, a binary score of SDR implementation in 23 sectors and 86 economies, in a gravity equation,...

Economists have increasingly become involved in trade remedy and litigation matters that call for economic interpretation or quantification. The literature on the use of econometric methods in response to legal requirements of trade policy is rather limited. This article contributes to filling...

This paper explores the role that quality of infrastructure has on a country's trade performance, estimating a gravity model that incorporates bilateral tariffs and a number of indicators for the quality of infrastructure. The paper looks at the impact of the quality of infrastructure (road,...

We estimate the effects of trade facilitation on the extensive margins of trade. Using OECD Trade Facilitation Indicators - which closely reflect the Trade Facilitation Agreement negotiated at the Bali WTO Ministerial Conference of December 2013 - we show that trade facilitation in a given...