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on International Trade |
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Issue of 2026–08–24
nine papers chosen by Nicola Daniele Coniglio, Università degli Studi di Bari “Aldo Moro” |
| By: | Serene Ho; Christine Liu; Jingtian Chen; In Song Kim |
| Abstract: | This project examines how political institutions and firm characteristics jointly shape the import tariffs applied to goods entering the United States. Using Longitudinal Firm Trade Transaction Database (LFTTD) linked to WTO tariff schedules and Policy IV measures of importing-country democracy, we study whether multinational corporations (MNCs) systematically import from less-democratic countries, and whether they face systematically different tariff rates compared with other U.S. importers as a result. The findings of this project demonstrate how firm-level heterogeneity and political institutions jointly determine the structure of trade protection at the border. |
| Keywords: | LFTTD, LBD, CMF |
| Date: | 2026–07 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cen:tnotes:26-28 |
| By: | Ruiqi Sun |
| Abstract: | Trade policy increasingly targets individual firms and products rather than entire sectors or countries. This paper develops a framework for evaluating granular trade policies in highly differentiated markets. Using an event-study design, I first show that product-pair elasticities of substitution are systematically related to the similarity between product descriptions. Motivated by this evidence, I develop a general-equilibrium trade model with oligopolistic competition. Products are heterogeneous in their attribute mix and quality, and substitution strength varies continuously with product similarity. I apply the theory to the mobile app sector and evaluate China's Great Firewall Project (GFW). Removing the GFW raises Chinese consumers' utility from app-based leisure but reallocates profits away from Chinese companies (e.g., Tencent) toward foreign companies (e.g., Meta). In the benchmark calibration, this profit shift more than offsets the direct consumer gain: removing the GFW lowers Chinese welfare by 0.146%, while raising welfare by 0.311% in the United States and 0.080% in the rest of the world. |
| Keywords: | granular trade policies, generalized translog demand, digital service trade |
| JEL: | F12 F13 F14 |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_12913 |
| By: | Rabah Arezki; Frederick van der Ploeg; Rick van der Ploeg |
| Abstract: | Critical mineral maps portray known resource endowments as fixed geographic facts, yet the resource base is endogenous to both demand conditions and institutional factors. The prevailing framing of critical mineral scarcity ignores the extent to which resources are discovered only when it is profitable to do so. Using a two-region model of endogenous reserves, we show that exploration investment and discovered reserves respond to global demand shocks, world resource prices, and the institutional environment facing international resource companies, including explicit and implicit taxes on exploration and on exports, including export bans and restrictive trade measures in pursuit of value-chain upgrading. While export bans may be attractive as industrial policy, they risk being self-defeating: by discouraging exploration investment, they reduce the very resource base on which industrial ambitions depend. We document the global proliferation of export restrictions on critical minerals and discuss the policy implications for developing countries navigating the twin pressures of resource nationalism and the green transition. |
| Keywords: | critical minerals, endogenous resources, exploration investment, export ban, resource nationalism, green transition, developing countries |
| JEL: | Q31 Q32 Q38 F13 O13 |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_12877 |
| By: | Ghose, Devaki; Karpaty, Patrik; Söderlund, Bengt; Zhao, Yingyan |
| Abstract: | How does transport infrastructure shape services provision, labor markets, and regional inequality? This paper studies the 2000 opening of the Øresund Bridge between Malmö, Sweden, and Copenhagen, Denmark, which sharply reduced travel time. The setting mirrors infrastructure linking peripheral regions to urban hubs, while the border makes unobserved services measurable in trade statistics. The bridge enabled cross-border commuting for on-site services and lowered business-travel costs for partially remote services like consulting. The paper develops a spatial model with commuting, migration, and services trade to separate these channels and quantify welfare effects. Services trade is distance-sensitive, with elasticities from −1.06 to −0.45, but less so than commuting. Lower commuting costs thus generate uneven gains, while lower services trade costs produce more diffuse benefits. Ignoring services understates welfare gains of infrastructure by 18%, especially for farther regions benefiting through services trade via business travel but not commuting. |
| Date: | 2026–05–20 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:11394 |
| By: | Dmitrii Shchetinin (Erasmus University Rotterdam); Stanislav Avdeev (University of Amsterdam) |
| Abstract: | International trade depends on the expectation that courts will protect commercial interests when disputes arise. With the growing number of international conflicts, it is crucial to know whether this expectation is met in practice. We examine the effect of the 2014 annexation of Crimea on the enforcement rate of foreign decisions by Russian and Ukrainian judges. We assemble novel data on the entire universe of Russian and Ukrainian court decisions concerning the enforcement of foreign decisions resolving cross-border commercial disputes. Using a difference-in-differences design, we find that the enforcement rate of Ukrainian (Russian) decisions in Russia (Ukraine) fell by 26% (33%) after the annexation. We show that courts increasingly justified refusals through discretionary legal grounds and undue-notification claims. Our findings provide the first causal evidence that international conflict affects both judicial decision-making and compliance with commercial treaties. |
| Keywords: | Arbitration, Armed conflict, Cross-border commerce, Extrajudicial factors, International commercial disputes, Transnational litigation |
| JEL: | D74 F14 F51 F53 K33 |
| Date: | 2026–06–29 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tin:wpaper:20260042 |
| By: | Philippe Andrade; Omar Barbiero; Alvaro Silva |
| Abstract: | In 2025, the average realized tariff on U.S. imports rose from about 2.5 percent to about 10 percent. The resulting increase in U.S. firms’ input costs had the potential to raise inflation significantly and explain why inflation remained significantly above the Federal Reserve’s 2 percent target last year. On the other hand, as the tariffs took hold, U.S. workers’ productivity grew, which could have helped companies reduce their costs and thereby mitigate inflationary pressures from the tariffs. To study the extent to which productivity gains may have offset the tariff-driven cost increases, the authors construct measures of sectoral increases in input costs induced by the new tariffs and compare them with sectoral labor productivity gains. |
| Keywords: | tariffs; inflation; labor productivity; input-output linkages; production costs; trade policy; supply chains |
| JEL: | E31 F13 E24 D24 |
| Date: | 2026–08–19 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:fedbcq:103664 |
| By: | Barry Eichengreen; George Cui; Asmaa A. El-Ganainy; Yevgeniya Koriyenko; Elyad Shojaei; Li Zeng; Shihangyin Zhang |
| Abstract: | We link two global trends—AI and geoeconomic fragmentation—asking how fragmentation affects the international diffusion of AI, the magnitude of gains, and their distribution across economies. We ask these questions in general but also with a focus on the MENAP economies. While the effects of AI are potentially far-reaching, the benefits are neither guaranteed nor even. Frontier AI innovation is concentrated in a small number of economies, while countries benefiting through supply-chain participation or AI adoption—with outcomes shaped by their position in global trade and production networks and their AI preparedness. Geoeconomic fragmentation slows AI diffusion and reshapes its distribution by raising trade costs, restricting technology and data flows, fragmenting digital services, and reducing cross-border investment and collaboration. Yet proactive policy choices can turn this dynamic: economies that position themselves as connectors—maintaining trade and technology links across multiple partners—can potentially capture diverted flows and outperform even the no-fragmentation benchmark. For the MENAP economies, diversified links with all major technology hubs can cushion the effects of fragmentation and provide a structural foundation to emerge as net beneficiaries of AI diffusion, but realizing that potential requires reducing AI-related trade costs, improving AI preparedness, and building local AI-related capacity. |
| JEL: | F14 F17 F47 O33 |
| Date: | 2026–08 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:35597 |
| By: | Andrea Fracasso; Stefano Schiavo |
| Abstract: | Growing geopolitical tensions have renewed interest in trade-related vulnerabilities as a component of economic security. However, the lack of a well-defined conceptual framework around the concept of economic security implies the co-existence of different definitions, shifting boundaries and fuzzy policy prescriptions. Recent empirical work has developed product-level indicators of external dependence, typically combining information on import concentration, global supply concentration, and domestic substitutability. These methodologies are generally designed either for sovereign States or for the European Union treated as a single integrated area. This paper argues that they cannot be directly replicated to assess vulnerabilities at the level of individual EU Member States. The paper's methodological contribution shows that the EU's quasi-federal nature creates specific conceptual and measurement problems for Member State assessments, especially concerning the treatment of intra-EU sourcing in the construction of concentration and substitutability indicators. These choices affect the internal coherence of vulnerability metrics and reflect prior judgments about whether the relevant threat is economic coercion, broader supply disruption, or both. An empirical section applies one of the existing methodologies to highly disaggregated trade data to illustrate the impact of alternative treatments of intra-EU trade and compare different results. |
| Keywords: | conomic security, trade dependence, supply-chain risk, EU, coercion |
| JEL: | F14 F15 F52 |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_12878 |
| By: | Fisnik Bajrami (Institute of Economic Studies, Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic); Ermal Lubishtani (University for Business and Technology, Prishtina, Kosovo) |
| Abstract: | One of the main expected benefits of official dollarization is its potential to promote trade by reducing exchange rate risk and transaction costs. This paper assesses the dollarization-trade relationship through a meta-regression analysis of 270 estimates from 14 empirical studies. The publication-bias diagnostics do not provide strong evidence that the reported effects are driven by selective reporting or small-study effects, while the average reported association remains positive. The results also show that the reported trade effect of dollarization is time-dependent. Reported effects are largest during the first 10 years after dollarization and decline as the post-dollarization horizon lengthens. This declining pattern remains evident across alternative specifications and robustness checks, although statistical precision weakens for the longest time horizon. |
| Keywords: | Official dollarization, trade, monetary integration, meta-regression analysis, publication bias |
| JEL: | F14 F33 E42 F15 C83 |
| Date: | 2026–08 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fau:wpaper:wp2026_24 |