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Timely deliveries have become more important in international trade in the recent decades, mostly because of the spread of international production fragmentation. This paper provides empirical evidence on the cost of time in trade by looking at how faster trade within the European Union (EU) contributed to the trade expansion with new EU members after the enlargement in 2004. I derive a bilateral trade cost index from trade data of EU countries in 19 manufacturing industries and years 2000-2006 and perform a double difference-in-differences estimation. The results show that the enlargement-induced decline in the trade cost index, and hence trade creation, was more than twice larger in industries, where production fragmentation is typically widespread. I proxy the improvement in timeliness by the decline in the waiting time at land border crossings and estimate that saving one hour at the border is like a 0.9% trade cost decline in ad valorem terms. Robustness checks, which account for the dominant transport mode or experiment with alternative measures of timeliness, confirm the main findings.

Timeliness has gained growing importance in international trade. This paper provides empirical evidence on the significant cost of time in trade by exploiting the quasi-experimental nature of the European Union (EU) enlargement in 2004. It applies a difference-in-difference-in-differences econometric strategy on a European industry-level database of bilateral trade barriers, where industries are differentiated according to their time sensitivity. The use of a treatment intensity indicator that captures the decline in the waiting time at borders supports the identification. Results are cross-checked on subsamples defined along transport mode choice probabilities, where intra-EU transport mode choice projections are obtained from an estimated discrete choice model on extra-EU trade. Robustness checks experiment with alternative definitions of treatment sensitivity and treatment intensity.

In this study we examine the impact on Hungary of a possible correction of global imbalances. We distinguished four different channels of the global adjustment process, which are widely referred to in the literature (fiscal tightening in the U.S.; housing price correction in the US; an increase in the risk premium of dollar assets; increase in domestic demand in the Asian region) and analyzed them through model simulations. We constructed global scenarios using the NIGEM model, while we captured the domestic impacts using the Quarterly Projection Model (NEM) of the Magyar Nemzeti Bank. According to our results, both the global and domestic effects differ significantly with respect to whether the correction originates from the U.S. or Asia and whether it is a result of policy or market processes. We found that a possible global correction will pass through to Hungary mainly through the Eurozone countries, thus its main impact will be relatively dampened. The responses of domestic macroeconomic variables depend on our assumptions on the reaction of monetary policy and the developments in the risk premium on forint denominated assets.

AbstractLabor market reforms in the direction of "flexicurity" have been widely endorsed as a means to increase an economy's ability to adjust to negative shocks while offering adequate social safety nets. This paper empirically examines how such reforms influence employment's responsiveness to output fluctuations (employment–output elasticity). To address this question, we employ a single equation error correction model with policy interactions on a panel of OECD countries, which also incorporates the period of the Great Recession, and distinguish between passive and active labor market policy types. Flexicurity is represented by three policy measures: unemployment benefit generosity, the flexibility of hiring and firing rules, and spending on active labor market policies. We find that the effects of any single policy change are shaped by the broader existing policy mix within which it takes place. A hypothetical flexicurity reform towards the policy mix of Denmark, a well‐known example of the flexicurity regime, is found to increase or leave unchanged countries' short‐run employment–output elasticities, depending on the initial policy mix. These results are robust to accounting for a large set of additional labor market institutions.

Foreign trade and sustainability is high on the political agenda. German and international policy-makers undertake increasing efforts to use trade policy more effectively for sustainable development purposes. A growing toolbox is meant to facilitate these policy aims, including sustainability chapters in trade agreements, sustainable value chains and sustainability standards. Meanwhile, scientific evidence on how trading activities impact on firms' sustainable behaviour is limited. This question is addressed by researchers from the Kiel Institute for the World Economy and the University of Ghana in a recent study 'Foreign Trade and Sustainable Development in Ghana'. The study provides new empirical evidence on the link between business sustainability and firms' engagement in international trade, using a survey database for more than 400 Ghanaian firms spanning 2013-2015, plus four case studies based on interviews. This unique information source provides a previously untapped wealth of information on various aspects of business sustainability in a Sub-Saharan African country. The key findings of the study are summarized in this policy paper.