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The European Union (EU) has notified its revised Generalized System of Preference (GSP) on 31 October, 2012 which will come into effect from 1 January, 2014. The EU is also in the process of, or contemplating, to sign Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) with many developing countries. Recently, EU has officially announced initiation of FTA negotiations with USA. Such preferential tariff arrangements could lead to significant erosion of preferences enjoyed currently by the Least Developed Countries (LDCs). In this backdrop, the main objective of the present study is to investigate the economic impacts originating from preference erosion in the EU market which could potentially affect LDCs in general, Bangladesh in particular. In this context, a dynamic computable general equilibrium (CGE) analysis has been developed by using the Global Trade Analysis Project (GTAP) model and database to explore the aggregate impact of the preferential erosion as well as sectoral implications for which different partial equilibrium analyses were used. The analysis evince that if the EU eliminates all tariffs for Pakistan, India and Vietnam, Bangladesh's real GDP could decrease by 0.27 percent whilst welfare loss could be to the tune of US$ 54 million. Total exports to the EU will be reduced by 0.18 percent; consequently, Bangladesh’s terms of trade and exports of textiles and clothing could be fall by about 1 percent. The product level disaggregated analysis using RCA and unit price of major items also indicate that a number of products including textiles and clothing will be confronted with formidable market access difficulties in the EU.

This paper examined the volatility models for exchange rate return, including Random Walk model, AR model, GARCH model and extensive GARCH model, with Normal and Student-t distribution assumption as well as nonparametric specification test of these models. We fit these models to Bangladesh foreign exchange rate index from January 1999 to December 31, 2012. The return series of Bangladesh foreign exchange rate are leptokurtic, significant skewness, deviation from normality as well as the returns series are volatility clustering as well. We found that student t distribution into GARCH model improves the better performance to forecast the volatility for Bangladesh foreign exchange market. The traditional likelihood comparison showed that the importance of GARCH model in modeling of Bangladesh foreign market, but the modern nonparametric specification test found that RW, AR and the model with GARCH effect are still grossly mis-specified. All these imply that there is still a long way before we reach the adequate specification for Bangladesh exchange rate dynamics.

The main purpose of this paper is to identify the major determining factors of Bangladesh trade and to investigate whether the gravity model correctly explains Bangladesh's trade patterns and then estimate the global trade potential of Bangladesh using an augmented gravity model.

Based on a panel data, a dynamic gravity model has used to estimate Bangladesh's trade potential with her major trading partners.

One of the major findings of the paper is that a large part of Bangladesh's potential trade has remained unrealized. The estimated results indicate Bangladesh tends to trade more with larger economies in general and for import developing economies in particular. The rising trade transaction cost is one of the major trading barriers causing high unrealization of trade potential in Bangladesh.

The paper concludes that liberalization of non‐policy barriers will spur Bangladesh's trade, particularly in time of ongoing global economic and financial crisis. Improvement in infrastructure that leads to reduce trade transportation costs should be a necessary step in order to unleash Bangladesh's trade potential.

This paper is the first‐ever attempt to estimate the trade potential of Bangladesh using dynamic gravity model in the pre‐ and post‐global economic and financial crisis period.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the potential economic effects of the proposed Bangladesh-India free trade agreement (FTA).

The authors have used the computable general equilibrium (CGE) analysis of Global Trade Analysis Project (GTAP) database. The analysis highlights the possible costs and benefits of the two nations within three different scenarios. Under Scenario I all bilateral import tariffs between Bangladesh and India are removed; Scenario II represents the setting where Bangladesh cuts its all tariffs by 75 and in Scenario III Bangladesh cuts tariffs by 50 percent. India cuts all their tariffs by 100 percent in all three scenarios.

The findings indicate that India may gain more in terms of welfare and real GDP via the improved terms of trade while Bangladesh is going to have welfare loss, but if Bangladesh is able to make a preferential FTA like Scenario III with India its welfare, real GDP and exports will be increased substantially.

This paper is the first-ever attempt to estimate the effect of the proposed Bangladesh-India FTA using CGE analysis of GTAP database version 7.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the trade and investment potential under the ambit of sub‐regional cooperation comprising the four contiguous countries of Bangladesh, China, India and Myanmar (BCIM).

The study addressed both intra‐regional and intra‐industrial trade, applying a dynamic gravity model of bilateral trade flows by product group of BEC's 1‐digit product classification, to set a panel data for the period of 1992‐2009.

The analysis reveals that higher trade transaction costs and tariff between each pair of countries reduce the trade flow. One of the major findings of the paper is that a large part of BCIM's trade has remained unrealized and the trade transaction cost is one of the major trading barriers prohibiting the growth of BCIM intra‐regional trade. The paper concludes that liberalization of non‐policy barriers will spur BCIM's trade, particularly in a time of ongoing global economic and financial crisis.

The study reinforces that improvement in infrastructure that leads to less trade transportation costs should be a necessary step in order to realize BCIM's trade potential. The paper concludes that liberalization of non‐policy barriers will spur BCIM's trade and economic cooperation, particularly in time of ongoing global economic and financial crisis.

This paper is the first‐ever attempt to estimate the trade potential of BCIM countries using dynamic gravity model.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the opportunities and challenging prospects for liberalizing financial services in various ways under the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS), in view of Bangladesh's interests and concerns.

Different tabular and graphical approaches and critical investigation are conducted to analyze the impact of financial liberalization to explore challenges and opportunities of liberalizing financial sector under GATS framework.

This paper finds that although Bangladesh does not make any commitment under GATS, the rate of liberalization in the financial sector has been quite rapid. As one of the least developed countries (LDCs), Bangladesh should have the flexibility to make commitments as well. From the present status of financial sector liberalization, this paper recommends that Bangladesh should adopt commitments because any non‐commitment sends the wrong signal to the global market and may reduce foreign direct investment.

The recommendation of this paper is very practical for trade policy for liberalizing financial sector in Bangladesh as well as other developing countries which already made great liberalization of this sector but did not make any commitments under GATS.

This paper is the first attempt to analyze the financial sector liberalization under GATS framework in the LDCs particularly in Bangladesh financial sector.

Purpose: To investigate best practices pertaining to tourism resilience and develop a tourism resilience framework for post-COVID-19 Bangladesh from the tourism destination management perspective.

Methodology: A qualitative research approach involving an integrative literature review was used in this research. Thirty-two scholarly works were considered in a thematic data analysis conducted to inform the development of a framework for post-COVID-19 Bangladesh.

Findings: Tourism resilience will be imperative, particularly in the areas of ecology, society, economy, and engineering, on institutional and individual levels. The proposed framework includes government, organization, social, and individual level resilience as the specific measures for Bangladesh. The particular nature of COVID-19 cases in Bangladesh, resulting in a relatively low death toll amidst a high-density population, works as a supportive ground in favor of resilience in the post-COVID-19 reality.

Practical Implications: The integrated framework is a theoretical contribution to post-COVID-19 tourism resilience literature on Bangladesh. It will operate as a policy guideline for key stakeholders when implementing initiatives to revive the tourism sector in the changed reality of Bangladesh after the pandemic.

Originality: The framework presented in this paper is the first attempt of its kind and can facilitate effective economic rebuilding in the changed postpandemic reality. The framework can be generalized to apply to other developing countries as well.

Paper Type: Theoretical framework development.