This study analyzes the firm-level impacts of temporary safeguard import tariffs implemented in Ecuador from 2015 to 2017. Employing a difference-in-differences methodology, we explore the policy's effects on a unique dataset combining firm- and product-level data. We focus on the direct effects...

Vietnam has been among the most successful East Asian economies, especially in weathering the external shocks of recent globalization crises - the 1997-98 Asian financial crisis and the 2008-09 great recession, financial crisis and collapse of global trade. Its success contradicts its...

This paper unpacks the role of the domestic content of imports as a novel source of policy interdependence along the global supply chain. We show how a rise in local contents embodied in imports can skew national trade policy preferences, and pull upstream and downstream countries in asymmetric...

This Working Paper contains some observations concerning the evolution of trade and trade-related policies in the Asia-Pacific region since the establishment in 1989 of the Trade Policy Review Mechanism (TPRM), whose goal is to improve the transparency of these policies. It also draws some...

The various channels through which a reduction in the cost of offshoring can improve wages in a developed country are by now well understood. But does a similar reduction in the offshoring cost also benefit workers in the world's factories in developing countries? Using a parsimonious...

Vietnam has been following China's path closely and very successfully for the last two decades, since the adoption of Doi moi in 1986. Over those last two decades, economic growth rates in both countries have been the highest worldwide (with GDP growing by 8 per cent and 10 per cent per year,...

This paper analyses the link between commercial policies and exports through a comparative analysis of the Asian giants—the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and India. While the PRC has surged ahead of India to dominate world manufactured exports, India has acquired competitive capabilities...

This paper investigates if trade can help achieve the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal of poverty eradication using microeconomic and macroeconomic mechanisms and the effects of trade and trade policy on consumer prices, producer prices, and wages. As these mechanisms affect the real...

While popular opinion often pictures FDI flowing in search of lowest-wage, lowest- skilled activities in emerging markets, actual FDI to such countries increasingly addresses medium to high-skilled manufacturing sectors. Such FDI might be called "Quality FDI" that contributes to the creation of...

Mexico experienced a tremendous expansion of its export-processing maquila sector during the 1990s. At the same time, a large proportion of its labor force remains employed in the informal sector. Since one of the main objectives of the maquiladora program was to increase formal employment, we...