In the past 10 years Iran has been emerging as a major car producer in the world. However, due to delays in economic reforms, Iranian car exports have not increased as much as production. This paper presents a first estimation of the Iranian export potential in the car industry. Based on new...

In 1997, fourteen Arab countries concluded an agreement, aimed at achieving the Greater Arab Free Trade Area (GAFTA) by 1.1.2007 at the latest. This paper provides a first ex-post appraisal of the GAFTA agreement’s trade effects. Based on new theoretical developments of the gravity equation,...

This article aims to provide new insights into trade effects of the Greater Arab Free Trade Area (GAFTA), using an imperfect competition framework. The model combines the new gravity model approach with supply-demand export equations in imperfect competition. In this regard, the role of scale...

This article seeks to study how intra-OECD trade in manufacturing goods has affected technological heterogeneity across member states during 1988-2008. To this aim, we derive a panel data version of the Eaton and Kortum (2002) normalised trade model to estimate, annually, the technological...

In the past ten years, emerging countries have considerably increased their production of cars. Although their share in world exports is still below 10%, these countries are now ready to conquer international markets, since they can produce on a large scale at very low production costs compared...

This study aims to identify underlying fundamental factors behind high-tech exports by the established and emerging countries, separately. The author also examines whether the two export patterns converge over time. Based on the gravity approach, a generalized method of moments panel estimator...

Two opposite principles are guiding the common commercial policy in Europe: the community preference and the security of supply for the European market. During the market crisis of 1993-1994 in France when the prices dropped down, fishermen asked for more protection in order to reduce fish...

This paper proposes an analysis of real income convergence in MENA countries for more than 800 disaggregated regional areas. A spatial analysis is implemented in order to take into account the spatial interactions of GDP per capita in these areas. Moreover, a b-convergence equation (absolute and...

This paper tests the relationship between climate and trade of agricultural products in MENA countries, using bilateral data disaggregated at product level. The model includes gravity control variables and addresses the selection bias with disaggregated production variables in a Heckman two-step...

Non-Tariff Measures (NTMs) have recently become a central issue for economists and policy makers. Based on a new database developed by the World Bank on five Middle East and North African(MENA) countries at a very detailed product level, this article provides calculations of the average tariff...