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The purposes of this paper are to provide a new framework for the (re)assessment of North-South relations, with a specific focus on North-South preferential trade agreements (PTAs); advance a new mechanism of how first-order, i.e. Southern countries’ first, North-South PTAs can affect the outcomes of second-order, i.e. Southern countries’ subsequent, North-South PTA negotiations; and re-examine the effects of North-South power asymmetries on the outcomes of North-South PTA negotiations.

The paper focuses on how North-South power asymmetries affect the outcomes of North-South PTA negotiations. It introduces the concept of “first-order” and “second-order” North-South PTAs to show that the “order” of an agreement can be a crucial factor in PTA negotiations. The claims of the paper are also supported by primary data obtained through the author’s personal interviews with European Union and USA trade officials and policy-makers (see Appendix).

The paper advances a new theoretical framework that takes a longer-term view on North-South trade relations, whereby, against the backdrop of the proliferating PTAs, first-order North-South agreements can raise the bargaining powers of Southern countries during subsequent North-South PTA negotiations, with strong implications for both developed and developing countries.

The paper is largely theoretical. A systematic empirical study of North-South PTAs will be required to validate or refute the theoretical framework advanced in this paper.

The paper introduces a new variable, namely the “order” of an agreement, which affects the logic of North-South PTA negotiations. Hence, the paper sets out a new theoretical framework that allows for a more accurate assessment of North-South power asymmetries and their effects on the outcomes of North-South PTA negotiations.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of trade integration on Pakistan’s export performance (value of exports, number of exporters and number of products per exporter) during 2003 to 2010.

Data from the World Bank Exporters Dynamics Database are analysed using fixed effect panel data techniques.

The results suggest that trade integration with South Asian Free Trade Area (SAFTA), China and Iran play remarkable role in improving export value by 73, 29 and 55 per cent, respectively. It is found that on average more than 140 and 339 exporters increase after integration with SAFTA and China, respectively, and during the study period, 1,605 and 606 exporters entered into SAFTA and Chinese market, respectively. Moreover, 182 and 146 additional exporters entered in Malaysian and Iranian export market after integration, which is 19 and 98 per cent, respectively, of initial year’s number of exporters. In addition, Malaysia and Mauritius show positive and considerable effect on diversification of product variety.

This is an original empirical research. The contributions of the paper are many fold: this paper is first to analyse the effect of Pakistan’s trade integration established during 2000s decade; pioneer contribution of this study is to use the number of exporters and number of products, as well as the value of exports to measure the export performance of Pakistan; and this study uses positive and negative discrepancies in export value data, number of HS6 products exported as a proxy of product diversification, share of industrial exports in total exports and share of textile exports in industrial exports.

South‐South trade is the fastest growing segment of world trade in the last two decades. This paper aims at demonstrating that it is a unique opportunity and a sound development tool for developing countries.

The paper describes the statistical and empirical evidence from a macroeconomic and microeconomic viewpoint, and discusses the policy options developing country governments face to promote South‐South trade and investment.

Not all regions, countries, products and services fare equally in the current state of play. That South‐South trade expands at a much faster pace than other trade, although it is subject to higher barriers and higher distance‐related costs, suggests that addressing trade facilitation issues is of the essence for future progress, including major investments in trade‐related infrastructure, like the modernization of air and water ports, roads, transport and customs services.

South‐South trade expansion is a market‐driven development – mostly resulting from the widespread operation of international supply chains of the South – that may be enhanced by government intervention but seldom spearheaded by it in the long run.

The “natural” next questions are whether South‐South trade can be an alternative to North‐South trade, whether the learning process for international trading is enhanced or retarded by it, and whether the proliferation of PTAs is strangulating progress in rules‐based multilateralism, the first‐best choice according to mainstream economic theory. Even more important in development terms is whether South‐South trade can help bring developing countries, small‐ and medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs) and the poor into the export process or, rather, it is a distraction from the real targets. This paper suggests there are robust answers to these queries already.

The Ireland-Northern Ireland Protocol has been one of the most contentious aspects of the EU-UK post-Brexit trade relationship. By requiring the UK to comply with EU customs and internal market rules in relation to Northern Ireland (NI), the Protocol has created a hybrid trade regime where NI is subject to multiple, overlapping and often conflicting rules. This paper aims to examine one area in which this hybridity manifests itself. It focusses on the interplay between the Protocol and post-Brexit UK trade agreements. It examines potential areas of conflict between Protocol obligations and obligations derived from UK trade agreements. In doing so, it sheds light on the extent to which compliance with the Protocol may undermine NI’s ability to export and import goods under the preferential terms negotiated under UK trade agreements. It further discusses the consequences of these incompatibilities between the Protocol and these agreements for NI and, more widely, the functioning of the UK internal market as whole.

Doctrinal legal research

The paper examines potential areas of conflict between Protocol obligations and obligations derived from UK trade agreements. In doing so, it sheds light on the extent to which compliance with the Protocol may undermine NI’s ability to export and import goods under the preferential terms negotiated under UK trade agreements. It further discusses the consequences of these incompatibilities between the Protocol and these agreements for NI and, more widely, the functioning of the UK internal market as whole.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge this is the first paper carrying out a comprehensive legal analysis of the interaction and potential conflicts between the Protocol on Ireland-Northern Ireland and the UK’s post Brexit trade agreements.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate and assess the trends of bilateral services trade in the world segmented by trade for final consumption and intermediate usage across several service sectors. The differential trends, if any, are studied while examining the role of free trade agreements which have a chapter on services trade as well as the role of services trade restrictions. The study unravels differences across service sectors in this respect.

The author uses an augmented gravity model to address the above using OECD- World Trade Organization (WTO) TiVA data for bilateral trade in intermediates and final products (October 2015 release) and World Bank Services Trade Restrictions Index (STRI). The poisson pseudo maximum likelihood estimation technique is used in light of the structure of the data. Trade creating and diverting effects are identified controlling for time and country-time specific effects. The following sectors are specifically looked at: total business sector services, computer and related services, financial intermediation, post and telecommunication, transport and storage, R&D and other business services, hotels and restaurants, construction, and wholesale and retail trade.

First, services free trade agreements (FTAs) have had a trade creating impact with no trade diverting impact for services trade in aggregate with stronger effects on services traded for intermediate usage. Second, financial intermediation and post and telecommunication have been left unaffected by services FTAs. While no trade diversion is concluded for any sector, R&D and other business services, transport and storage and wholesale retail trade show maximum trade creation effects in response to FTAs. Third, trade restrictions of mainly OECD countries are responsible for lowering exports for most sectors. Finally, in terms of policy implications, at a general level, the author does not find a significant difference in the author’s results for services traded for intermediate usage or final consumption except for a stronger effect of FTAs on intermediate services trade. Hence, the policies to foster services trade on both counts are concluded to be the same and deal with behind-the-border policies of domestic industrial policy reforms like national treatment of foreign firms, licensing requirements, FDI policies, etc.

Statistics for services trade are limited. The data are only available for the years 1995, 2000, 2005, 2008, 2009, 2010 and 2011. Additionally, the conclusions on services trade restrictions are based on statistics for 2011 alone, since this is the only year for which the statistics are available. A complete time series for the entire sample period would increase robustness of the study with a better time variant version of the trade restrictiveness variable. Finally, in the construction of the OECD-WTO-TiVA database of a world IO table, there may have been approximations in constructing statistics for services traded for intermediate usage and final consumption. The results remain sensitive to the same but this is the best possible statistics available for the purposes.

This is the first study which looks at services trade segmented by trade for final consumption and intermediate usage taking advantage of the available data for a number of service sectors. The role of restrictions is also studied for the first time segmented by trade in intermediates and final consumption. The stronger effects of FTAs on intermediate services trade as well as financial intermediation and post and telecommunication services being insulated from effects of FTAs are important findings, especially since services are mainly thought to be traded for final consumption. Similar trends of results for services traded for intermediate usage and final consumption and restrictions affecting exports from exporter countries and imports by importer countries highlight the importance of behind-the-border domestic policies in facilitating or inhibiting services trade on both counts and more importantly for intermediate usage which, in turn, would improve goods tradability.

The existing literature on aid for trade (AfT) tends to support the effectiveness of AfT in improving trade capacities and enhancing the export performance of recipient countries. While aid directed at trade-related infrastructure (e.g. ports and roads) is reported to drive the overall effect of AfT, the increasing importance of labor market flexibility and informal labor in export environment has been largely overlooked. The purpose of this paper is to test two hypotheses regarding the relationship between labor market flexibility, exports and AfT. First, flexible labor regulation promotes exports by reducing adjustment costs related to the export process. Second, for informal labor-intensive export sectors, AfT effectiveness may be compromised by the contraction of the informal sector due to labor deregulation as it deteriorates comparative advantage that supports recipients’ export competitiveness.

Since first introduced by Tinbergen (1962), the gravity model has been widely used to analyze bilateral trade, and its usefulness has been verified in several prominent empirical studies (e.g. Anderson and van Wincoop, 2003; Helpman et al., 2008). However, despite the empirically successful framework of the gravity model, the standard gravity equation may not be appropriate for estimating the effect of AfT in the paper. The main interest lies in whether aggregate AfT flows enhance the export “performance” of individual recipients, that is, whether they improve the recipients’ total exports rather than their bilateral exports. For this purpose, the authors took aggregated approach to the gravity model from Anderson and van Wincoop (2003).

The findings suggest that while both AfT and labor market flexibility are positively associated with higher export levels, the export-promoting effect of AfT is marginally reduced by the contraction of informal workforce. These findings, however, only hold for export sectors that heavily rely on informal labor force, that is, primary commodities and resource/labor-intensive goods. The authors also find that these effects are stronger in low-income countries, indicating that the AfT initiative has been effective where it is needed the most.

This paper is the first attempt to analyze the relationship between AfT and exports with consideration of labor market flexibility. Using the data for 85 recipient countries, the authors test the following hypotheses. First, labor market flexibility promotes exports by reducing adjustment costs related to the exporting process. Second, the contraction of the informal sector due to labor deregulation deteriorates developing countries’ comparative advantage in certain export sectors. Hence, while both AfT and labor market flexibility are expected to enhance the export volume of developing countries, the loss from weaker comparative advantage in a form of smaller informal labor force can exceed the gains from AfT in certain sectors.