This book questions what enduring lessons have been learnt about the interdependence of international trade and economic development during the last 50 years. Since the end of the Cold War and the advent of the WTO, developing countries have been forced to face the choice of whether, and to what...

This paper reviews key recent literature on the effects of trade liberalisation on poverty in developing countries and asks whether our knowledge has changed significantly over a decade. The conclusion that liberalisation generally boosts income and thus reduces poverty has not changed; some...

In this chapter we survey the voluminous literature on migration affecting trade and the somewhat less developed literature linking aid flows to migration. We aim to guide the reader through the two literatures, highlighting key contributions and identifying important lines of enquiry. Simmering...

Increasing numbers of free trade and economic partnership agreements have been concluded among many countries in East Asia, and economic integration has progressed rapidly on both a de facto and de jure basis. However, as the authors of this book argue, integration may intensify regional...

The authors explore the argument that trade between the Mercosur countries should be stimulated by preferential policies because of their geographic proximity. That is, that the Mercosur countries are candidates for natural integration. They find that, on average, transportation margins on trade...

Agricultural support costs OECD countries billions of dollars per year in lost income. It is frequently argued, however, that this is not waste, but is rather a fair price to pay for a number of "non-economic" objectives such as thriving rural communities and increased national security. This...

Most literature suggests that voluntary export restraints (VER) are not very harmful for the exporting country. This paper argues that this view is misconceived. Most work has focused on the welfare loss to the importing country arising from a loss of income transfer combined with a...

We discuss three models from the literature in which transportation costs play a critical role in evaluating international economic integration. One considers costs on intra-bloc trade, one those of extra-bloc trade, and one the relativity of the two. We then examine estimates of the actual...