The dynamism of air traffic markets in the Middle East obscures the persistence of restrictions on international competition. But how important are such restrictions for passenger traffic? This paper uses detailed data on worldwide passenger aviation to estimate the effect of air transport...

Harms, Mattoo, and Schuknecht examine the determinants of market access commitments in international financial services trade in the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS). Based on a theoretical model, they investigate empirically the role of domestic political economy forces,...

Financial services negotiations through the World Trade Organization have helped many developing and transition economies develop more stable and transparent policy regimes, and their commitments in no way compromise their ability to pursue sound macroeconomic and regulatory policies. But the...

This paper focuses on the sluggish growth of world trade relative to income growth in recent years. We use a simple empirical strategy based on an error correction model to assess whether the global trade slowdown is structural or cyclical. An estimate of the relationship between trade and...

There is limited trade in health services despite big differences in the price of health care across countries. Whether patients travel abroad for health care depends on the coverage of treatments by their health insurance plan. Under existing health insurance contracts, the gains from trade are...

This paper elaborates on a number of key principles that need to underpin a coherent and development-friendly architecture for the WTO. The key principles include enlarging the scope of WTO bargaining to include labor flows as well as capital flows; creating a structure that would provide a...

This paper estimates the effect of China's exchange rate changes on exports of developing countries in third markets. The degree of competition between China and its developing country competitors in specific products and destinations plays a key role in the identification strategy. The strategy...

The paper presents the importance of the green economy for Romania in the context of sustainable development. It is known the critical state of environment, unsustainable exploitation of natural resources and population’s poverty. These phenomena are manifesting almost in all Europe that which...

There is significant debate over the effect of the Interstate Commerce Act (ICA) on the cost of rail transport to shippers. Taking price differences across locations as proxy for transport costs, we use data on wheat prices before and after the implementation of the ICA to see if the Act led to...

We collect extensive data on worldwide trade by transportation mode and use this to provide detailed comparisons of the greenhouse gas emissions associated with output versus international transportation of traded goods. International transport is responsible for 33 percent of world-wide...