December 1999 - Developing countries may be better served by north-south than by south-south free trade agreements. Free trade agreements between low-income countries tend to lead to divergence in member country incomes, while agreements between high-income countries tend to lead to convergence....

December 1999 - The median landlocked country has only 30 percent of the trade volume of the median coastal economy. Halving transport costs increases that trade volume by a factor of five. Improving the standard of infrastructure from that of the bottom quarter of countries to that of the...

Many cities in developing economies, particularly in Africa, are experiencing urbanization without industrialization. This paper conceptualizes this in a framework in which a city can produce non-tradable goods and-if it is sufficiently competitive-also internationally tradable goods,...