Free Sky and Clouds of Restrictions

An increasing percentage of trade occurs via air. However, air services are excluded from the WTO Agreement and, as a result, the aviation market is regulated by a plethora of Air Services Agreements. In this paper, we investigate the extent of discrimination -in terms of access to international air services- generated by this system. In particular, using recently available information on Air Services Agreements for 184 countries, we estimate the impact of international air services liberalization on air passenger flows. We find that increasing the degree of liberalization has a positive and significant effect. For instance, the higher degree of air services liberalization among countries of the European Economic Area (EEA) is estimated to account for approximately 30 per cent higher intra-EEA passenger traffic compared with countries that signed Open Skies-type agreements. Our results are robust to the use of several measures of liberalization as well as alternative estimation techniques that address potential problems of endogeneity, heteroscedasticity and data inaccuracy

Free Sky and Clouds of Restrictions

An increasing percentage of trade occurs via air. However, air services are excluded from the WTO Agreement and, as a result, the aviation market is regulated by a plethora of Air Services Agreements. In this paper, we investigate the extent of discrimination -in terms of access to international air services- generated by this system. In particular, using recently available information on Air Services Agreements for 184 countries, we estimate the impact of international air services liberalization on air passenger flows. We find that increasing the degree of liberalization has a positive and significant effect. For instance, the higher degree of air services liberalization among countries of the European Economic Area (EEA) is estimated to account for approximately 30 per cent higher intra-EEA passenger traffic compared with countries that signed Open Skies-type agreements. Our results are robust to the use of several measures of liberalization as well as alternative estimation techniques that address potential problems of endogeneity, heteroscedasticity and data inaccuracy.Air Services Agreements; Air services liberalization; Air passenger traffic; Regulatory quality.

Trade liberalisation and growth: market access advantage

This paper analyses the effect of integration on growth when countries have different preferences. It describes a two-country two-sector model, with the first sector producing the homogeneous good and the second sector producing a differentiated good, which is divided in a first-class goods group and a second-class group. The only innovative sector is the one producing first-class goods. In autarchy, both countries produce first and second-class goods. Opening up to trade, with non-zero transport costs, induces countries' specialisation according to their home-market comparative advantage. In these circumstances, transportation costs affect the growth rate. There are three main findings. First, integration has a positive effect on growth, but there is a discontinuity at free trade. Second, integration with a country with a smaller market for the innovative good may increase growth more than integration with a country with symmetric preferences. Finally, the effect of integration on growth is higher the larger the size of the home market advantage and the smaller is the extent of spillovers between countries. <br><br> Keywords; home market comparative advantage, integration, intra-industry trade, endogenous growth

Timeliness and contract enforceability in intermediate goods trade

This paper shows that the institutional environment and the ability to export on time are sources of comparative advantage as important as factors of production. In particular, the ability to export on time is crucial to explain comparative advantage in intermediate goods. These findings underscore the importance of investing in infrastructure and fostering trade facilitation to boost a country's participation in production networks. Furthermore, the paper contributes to the so-called"distance puzzle"by showing that the increasing importance of distance over time is in part driven by trade in intermediate goods.Economic Theory&Research,Free Trade,Environmental Economics&Policies,Trade Policy,Transport Economics Policy&Planning

Trade liberalisation and growth: market access advantage

This paper analyses the effect of integration on growth when countries have different preferences. It describes a two-country two-sector model, with the first sector producing the homogeneous good and the second sector producing a differentiated good, which is divided in a first-class goods group and a second-class group. The only innovative sector is the one producing first-class goods. In autarchy, both countries produce first and second-class goods. Opening up to trade, with non-zero transport costs, induces countries' specialisation according to their home-market comparative advantage. In these circumstances, transportation costs affect the growth rate. There are three main findings. First, integration has a positive effect on growth, but there is a discontinuity at free trade. Second, integration with a country with a smaller market for the innovative good may increase growth more than integration with a country with symmetric preferences. Finally, the effect of integration on growth is higher the larger the size of the home market advantage and the smaller is the extent of spillovers between countries

A Service of zbw Leibniz-Informationszentrum Wirtschaft Leibniz Information Centre for Economics Knowledge spillovers through international supply chains World Trade Organization Economic Research and Statistics Division Knowledge spillovers through inter

Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen: Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden. Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen. Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. Disclaimer: This is a working paper, and hence it represents research in progress. This paper represents the personal opinions of individual staff members and/or external contributors, and is not meant to represent the position or opinions of the WTO or its Members, nor the official position of any staff members. Any errors are the fault of the authors. Terms of use: Documents in Knowledge spillovers through international supply chains Knowledge spillovers through international supply chains Roberta Piermartini 1 and Stela Rubínová 2 23 July 2014 Abstract Using industry-level R&amp;D and patent data for a sample of 29 countries for the period 2000-2008, we study the importance of international supply linkages for knowledge spillovers. We find a statistically significant effect of supply chains on international knowledge spillovers. We show that knowledge spillovers increase with the intensity of supply chains linkages between countries. We also show that the evidence that knowledge spillovers flow along the supply chains is more robust than the traditional finding that knowledge spillovers depend on geographical distance or trade flows. Our findings support policies that favour participation in supply chains to foster economic development, but also show that potential gains depend on the type of participation

Essays on the effects of integration on labour markets, r&amp;d, trade and growth

This thesis is composed of four core chapters looking at the effects of product market integration on a country's performance in terms of innovation, exports and growth.Chapter 2, &quot;Trade Liberalisation and Innovative Success with Unionised Labour Markets&quot;, examines the effects of trade liberalisation on the incentive for firms to innovate where there are unionised labour markets. It shows how institutional differences between countries can lead to differences in both innovative performance and how product market integration affects innovative performances. In particular, it is shown that integration mitigates the negative effect that unions have on innovation.Chapter 3, &quot;Trade Liberalisation, Static and Dynamic Competition&quot;, uses empirical evidence to assess the impact of increasing integration on the role played by low wages and fast innovation in determining a country's ability to compete on the international markets. There is evidence that increasing globalisation of production and technological spillovers, linked with increasing trade, reduces the importance of innovation in determining market shares only in low technology industrial sectors; while it increases only in technology intensive sectors.Chapter 4, &quot;Integration, Spillovers, Concentration and Growth&quot;, shows the effect of integration on growth and welfare in a model where market structure is endogenous and IRS are internal to the firm. Integration is modelled as both a reduction of transport costs and an increase in the flow of ideas between countries. It is found that integration might have a non linear effect on growth. It increases concentration and has an ambiguous effect on welfare. Finally it is shown that, as long as the number of firms in the market is large enough, a world characterised by free exchange of ideas but no trade grows faster than a world characterised by free trade but no exchange of knowledge.Finally, Chapter 5, &quot;Trade Liberalisation and Growth: the Market Access Advantage&quot;, shows the impact of integration on growth via the home market effect. It is shown that when countries specialise according to their home market advantage, integration has a positive effect on growth. Yet, there is a discontinuity at free trade.</p