Technical barriers (standards), import licenses and tariffs may be deployed as means of limiting the market access of foreign firms. The present paper examines these measures in a setting of monopolistic competition. We find that, if protection focuses predominantly on the number of foreign...

Recent literature has emphasized the importance of transaction costs and infrastructure in explaining trade, access to markets, and regional cooperation under globalization. For most Asian countries, transaction costs are a greater barrier to trade integration than import tariffs. By estimating...

This paper examines the impact of market integration in the presence of a labor union. Effects on wages, employment, product price, firm profits, and union rents are analyzed. Both the theoretical model as well as numerical sim - ulations show the importance of factors such as the product demand...

We consider the impact of preferential trade agreements (PTAs) on horizontal foreign direct investment (FDI) coming from parent countries outside the PTA. While easier access to a larger market due to a PTA may justify new FDI, preexisting investments may be rationalized as firms concentrate...

The influence of data aggregation on applied trade theory may not be generally appreciated. Aggregation can have a direct impact on the direction of trade, factor intensity, factor abundance, factor substitution, product differentiation, and intra-industry trade. This paper develops some...

Tariff literature on third-degree price discrimination remains only lightly explored. The purpose of the paper is to investigate whether there exist optimum tariffs in the presence of different demand elasticities. We explore (i) the case of optimum uniform ad valorem tariff, and (ii) the case...

International Transport Services (ITS) play an important role in influencing international trade flows. This paper develops an analytical framework in which ITS costs are endogenously determined. It shows that ITS sector liberalization foster international trade very much the same way tariff...

This study offers an empirical microlevel analysis of the pass-through effects of the East African Community Common External Tariff on consumer prices in Kenya. Using data from the Kenya Integrated Household Budget Surveys conducted in 2005 and 2015, this research employs a fixed-effects model...

When the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) formally adopted the principle of “open regionalism” (OR) in its trade liberalization in 1991, many were optimistic that this approach suggested the bloc as a stepping stone toward global free trade. This optimistic view was reinforced by the...

Public-sector purchases from private firms account for over 10 percent of GDP in most developed countries, and they are typically biased in favour of domestic suppliers. This paper explores the impact of discriminatory public procurement on the location of industries. Our main theoretical...