We investigate how protectionist policies influence short-run economic growth. Our empirical strategy exploits an extraordinary tax scandal that gave rise to an unexpected change of government in Sweden. A free-trade majority in parliament was overturned by a protectionist majority in 1887. We...

In this paper, we study how contract enforcement at the local level affects a firm's ability to supply customised intermediate inputs to foreign firms. Using Italian firm-level data, we show that firms located in courts with higher judicial trial length in civil disputes, which is our measure of...

We evaluate whether survey-based indicators produce lower forecast errors for export growth than indicators obtained from hard data such as price and cost competitiveness measures. Our pseudo out-of-sample analyzes and forecast encompassing tests reveal that survey-based indicators outperform...

This paper analyzes the changes that occurred in Moldova’s trade of agricultural and food products since the implementation of the Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Agreement (DCFTA) with European Union. The research will include the analysis of Moldova’s foreign trade activity from the...

This article describes the development of international trade blocs world wide from the 1950s till 2010. We updated the data on international trade flows and introduced a new trade bloc variable based on the intramax hierarchical clustering technique, which defines trade blocs on actual trade...

This paper sets up a model of trade, in which two countries with differing levels of technology specialize on the production of subsets of the global value chain. In the open economy equilibrium, the technologically backward country exports intermediates in exchange for imports of a homogeneous...

This paper examines the importance of localized knowledge for innovative exporters by observing their embeddedness in regional innovation systems and international knowledge flow by using trade data on openness. The study distinguishes between new competence creation as proxied by patent...

Romania had important trade relations with the Mediterranean countries since before 1990. Subsequently, in both the pre-accession and post-accession period, this group of countries took together about 47% of the extra-EU Romanian agri-food exports and 16% of the extra-EU imports (averages...

Global Value Chains (GVCs) provide an important opportunity to become member of the global economy. Gaining access to GVCs and the possibility of developing linkages with major suppliers and customers enables the prospect to upgrade products and production processes via knowledge and...

This study analyzes empirically the effects of import competition on firm productivity (TFPQ) using administrative firm-level panel data from German manufacturing. We find that only import competition from high-income countries is associated with positive incentives for firms to invest in...