The scope and depth of bilateral and regional preferential trade agreements (RTAs) negotiated over the past 15 years has expanded beyond traditional market access and preferential tariffs to include provisions on a wide range of issues, including trade facilitation. This study is a first attempt...

For small open economies, it is essential that many firms find their way to the export market and most governments provide some form of export promotion assistance. We use detailed firm-level data for Flanders, the largest region in Belgium, to evaluate whether its program raises firms'...

In the global recession of 2009, exports declined precipitously in many countries. We illustrate with firm-level data for Belgium and Peru that the decline was very sudden and almost entirely due to lower export sales by existing exporters. After the recession, exports rebounded almost equally...

Reducing trade costs in Asia and the Pacific: key findings and the way forward -- Facilitating participation of SMEs in trade: financing and communications technology as key enablers -- Including landlocked developing countries: trade facilitation potential of existing Asian transit agreements...

Agri-food trade has expanded over the recent decade in the Republic of Moldova. Trade policies promoted by the Republic of Moldova are mostly oriented towards product diversification, knowledge transfer and promotion of new competitive goods with high added value for domestic and foreign...

We estimate the effects of trade facilitation on export diversification, as measured by two extensive margins: the number of products exported by destination and the number of export destinations served by product. To address the issue of causality, we employ an identification strategy whereby...

We examine the gains from Chinese accession to the WTO. Using Arkolakis, Costinot, and Rodríguez-Clare (2012) we provide a new quantitative welfare measure by dividing the manufacturing sector into import and export sub-sectors. We then evaluate how the increased openness caused by China's...

Die deutsche Exportwirtschaft ist seit Jahrzehnten eine wichtige Säule für die gesamtwirtschaftliche Entwicklung der Bundesrepublik. Entscheidend für den Erfolg deutscher Unternehmen bei der Erschließung internationaler Märkte ist neben der Innovationskraft der Firmen ebenso die...

We estimate the effects of trade facilitation on the extensive margins of trade. Using OECD Trade Facilitation Indicators - which closely reflect the Trade Facilitation Agreement negotiated at the Bali WTO Ministerial Conference of December 2013 - we show that trade facilitation in a given...

Do export promotion agencies (EPAs) impact the probability of non-exporting firms to export? In the last decade many countries have introduced EPAs to support their firrms in order to deal with asymmetric information problems and make feasible additional gains from trade. Some recent studies...