Suchergebnisse

The paper evaluates the political and economic incentives to conclude the EU-Mexico Free Trade Agreement (FTA). It discusses EU and Mexican trade policy as well as the multilateral context for FTAs. In addition, using a disaggregated approach at the threedigit Standard International Trade Classification, it identifies the commodities that will be particularly affected by the FTA. The results show that considerable trade effects can be expected in a narrow range of products and that the EU is likely to gain much more than Mexico. ; In diesem Papier werden die politischen und ökonomischen Anreize zur Vereinbarung des Freihandelsabkommens zwischen der EU und Mexiko bewertet. Dafür werden die europäische und mexikanische Handelspolitik analysiert und der multilaterale Zusammenhang der Bildung von Freihandelsabkommen betrachtet. Darüber hinaus werden die Auswirkungen des Freihandelsabkommens auf der disaggregierten dreistelligen Ebene des internationalen Warenverzeichnisses für den Außenhandel geschätzt. Die Ergebnisse zeigen, daß in einem begrenzten Bereich von Produktgruppen signifikante Handelseffekte zu erwarten sind und daß die EU stärker als Mexiko vom Abkommen profitieren wird.

The paper assesses the impact of foreign aid on the change in the quality of regulations, and identifies the drivers of this change in a case study on Rwanda. In the empirical analysis, we find that highly targeted Aid for Business has a significantly positive impact on regulations across developing countries, but we do not find any effects for overall aid or aid directed at broad governance areas. In the country case study, we depart from Rwanda's excellent regulatory performance to explain how aid is effective in changing the regulatory environment, driven by the country's strong political leadership and its singular institutional history.

The European Union is currently negotiating Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) with six African, Caribbean and Pacific country groupings, aiming at establishing mutual free trade. This paper empirically assesses the impact of the EPAs on trade flows and government revenues for 22 East and Southern African countries and discusses implications for intra-regional integration. The results indicate that while moderate trade effects can be expected, relatively large budget effects are likely to occur in a number of these countries, exposing them to considerable structural and financial adjustment requirements. Also, EPAs would strengthen the need to consolidate overlapping intra-regional integration schemes.