Even though trade negotiations have increasingly come to focus on regulatory issues, the full impacts, that is, both social costs and benefits of regulatory changes, often remain unexamined in trade impact assessments. To bridge this gap, we scrutinize the theoretical foundations, methodologies...

Can consumers trust that the food they buy in the supermarket, even if imported, is not harmful to their health? What would be the consequences if their trust in existing health and safety standards were to be undermined by recognizing lower foreign standards? Against the backdrop of public...

The negotiations on a deep and comprehensive free trade area between Tunisia and the European Union (EU) - also known by its French acronym "Projet d'accord de libre-échange complet et approfondi" (ALECA) - have been ongoing since 2015. Beyond the bilateral reduction of tariffs and quotas, the...

The current negotiations on a transatlantic Free-Trade Agreement between the US and the EU (TTIP) have raised substantial public interest. Several studies have highlighted the positive economic effects of TTIP. A new ÖFSE report shows that these claims are overstated and neglect crucial...

Many least developed countries (LDCs) face commodity dependence on the export and import side. This paper develops a structuralist computable general equilibrium model for commodity-dependent LDCs and simulates global commodity price shocks for Burkina Faso, Ethiopia and Mozambique. Results show...

The European Union (EU) and Tunisia launched negotiations on a Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Area (DCFTA) in 2015. So far, progress has been limited. The enhanced integration of the Tunisian economy into the EU single market involves several controversial topics. Above and beyond the...

The European Union (EU) promotes the Free Trade Agreement with Vietnam (EVFTA) as an important milestone of its trade agenda. The agreement, whose part with EU-only issues is supposed to be ratified in 2019, is the most comprehensive one that the EU has concluded with a developing country so...

In recent years, a number of studies have been put forth to assess the potential economic effects of the EU-US trade agreement - the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP). Most studies report gains for the TTIP-member states. However, the commonly applied CGE models contain...

The Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) between the EU and African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries mark a new era in the economic relations between both sides. Reciprocal tariff liberalization will however result in asymmetric market opening by ACP partners, which will entail negative,...

This policy note presents policy recommendations for a sustainable development strategy targeting the Ivorian and Ghanaian cocoa processing sectors. Against the backdrop of a comparatively small share of processed cocoa exports and limited opportunities in the cocoa global value chain,...