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This article examines the impact of population age structure on the real exchange rate. Data on a panel of 22 OECD (Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development) countries over 1980–2015 period are used to estimate the empirical model. Using fixed effect model the paper finds that different age cohorts have a significant influence on the real exchange rates in the sample countries. The results are mostly consistent with the theoretical framework discussed in the paper and also with the findings of previous studies in this area. These results have important policy implications given the fact that the population is ageing in almost all the OECD economies these days.

Comprehensive studies examining how Korean e-commerce trade works are currently limited. This study seeks to explore whether Korea’s e-commerce trade is more applicable to traditional trade theory or to modern theories. According to our analysis, the share of intra-industry trade (IIT) in modern trade theory is less than that of general trade for Korean e-commerce. Therefore, trade based on comparative advantage can be more valid in explaining e-commerce trade. From results in analyzing the gravity model, it was found that Korea’s e-commerce exports are higher as IIT with its FTA partners. In contrast, it is found that the lower the proportion of e-commerce trade, the higher chance for the import growth. Lastly, this study looked at what kind of comparative advantage is realized through imports. While Korea has been mostly exporting goods of high quality, its major trading partners import products based on price and selection of goods. In order for Korea’s e-commerce to grow, a more strategic approach is necessary. A strategy of high price based on superior quality is not effective, and as e-commerce has radically reduced sales and marketing costs, so a price reduction needs to be reflected in the price of goods for consumers.

In a supply-constrained region like Asia, promoting exports has always been a challenge particularly at a time when Asia’s trade has been severely affected by lack of external demand. This paper argues that price barriers have taken a new shape during the global financial crisis period which may generate differential impacts on trade flows as we proceed toward recovery. The size and shape of price barriers would be higher if NTBs, applied by the countries during the crisis period, were counted. One of the conclusions of this paper is that ‘price’ barrier is still more important than ‘non-price’ barrier in enhancing Asia’s trade and integration. The higher the price barrier between countries in a pair, the less they trade. In other words, a 10 percent increase in the ad-valorem price (transport and tariff) lowered trade by 6 percent. Tariff and transport costs, each considered separately, also influence the trade flow in the same direction, to more or less the same extent. There are indications of huge domestic infrastructure bottlenecks in countries in Asia. Based on direct and indirect evidence related to trade barriers, this paper concludes that complementary trade policies focusing on price and non-price barriers have immense importance in enhancing international trade and integration in the post-crisis period.

The international trade literature has established that export product diversification lowers export product revenue instability. The current analysis investigates whether this finding carries over services exports.

The empirical analysis covers a sample of 152 countries over the period 1980–2014 and employs the two-step system generalized method of moments (GMM) approach.

The empirical findings indicate that services export diversification reduces services export revenue instability both over the full sample as well as over sub-samples of high-income countries (HICs), least developed countries (LDCs) as well as developing countries (i.e. non-HICs) that are not LDCs. HICs appear to experience a higher positive effect of services export diversification on services export revenue instability than in developing countries. The analysis also shows that countries that further open-up to international trade enjoy a greater reducing effect of services export diversification on the instability of services export revenue.

This analysis, therefore, adds to the existing studies on the relationship between export product diversification and the instability of revenue derived from goods exports by focusing on the services export side. An important message from the analysis is that countries that diversify their services export basket enjoy lower services export revenue instability when they further integrate into the world trade market.

This study highlights the importance of services export diversification, including for stabilizing services export revenue to services traders. Diversifying services export items, including across traditional and modern services sectors involves the implementation of a wide range of policies and measures, of which the liberalization of the services sectors through reduction and eventually the elimination of services trade barriers; the improvement of the business environment and the development of domestic financial markets (see for example, Hoekman, 2017). It could be interesting that another study consider policies and measures that could promote services export diversification.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first time this topic is being addressed, including empirically.

The purpose is to market a reinterpretation of Brazilian economic history highlighting the importance of non-tradable goods to understand major historical developments such as the lack of industrialization in the mining boom; the rise and contribution of industries to development in the early 20th century; indexation as hyperinflation in the late 20th century; growth and cycles in the early 21st century.

Section 2 introduces analytical perspectives on the relationship between non-tradables, transport costs and external shocks. Section 3 presents a historical overview of the gold and coffee cycles in the Brazilian economy, which highlights the crucial role played by transport costs in the genesis of industrialization. Thus, in a more precise way, industrialization was not an import substitution process but the substitution of non-tradables by the domestic tradable manufactures.

Section 4 shows that Brazilian statistical records and historiography disregard this characterization and, to that extent, underestimate economic growth in the primary export phase (1872–1920) and overestimate growth rates in the industrialization period (1920–1940). Section 5 shifts to the end of the 20th century to analyze the relationship between non-tradables, indexation and hyperinflation. Section 6 concludes with a brief discussion of the role played by the terms of trade and non-tradables in the unfolding of the 2014 economic crisis.

Distance from international markets and a continental geographic size made transport costs in Brazil historically prohibitive: the relevance of non-tradables in the Brazilian economic history. While the theme is not new, it seldom received proper attention in the historiography.

This paper aims to test purchasing power parity (PPP) hypothesis for Greece, Italy, Ireland, Portugal and Spain, which are known as the GIIPS countries.

The authors conduct a comprehensive analysis by using unit root approaches without and with structural breaks and non-linearity.

The PPP is valid for the GIIPS countries. Considering structural breaks in non-linear framework plays a crucial role.

There is no empirical study testing PPP hypothesis by focusing on the GIIPS countries. This study further takes into account for structural breaks and non-linearity in the real exchange rates of these countries.

The purpose of this paper is to provide an early assessment of India’s South-South cooperation for trade and technology (SSTT) with East Africa, focusing on Ethiopia, Rwanda, Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania. It aims to analyse the role of SSTT in providing support to targeted sectors.

The paper examines SSTT, focusing on India and East Africa over a specific period (2000–2016) of its emergence, and extends the public sponsorship literature in international business (IB) to better understand the relationship between SSTT and value addition – applying to a particular case study of SSTT interventions in spices.

The paper highlights SSTT as a pathway to support value addition in global value chains (GVCs). Trade between India and East African countries has grown, with three developments over the period of analysis in particular: shifting trade patterns, growing share of intermediate goods trade and differences in GVC insertion. However, East African exports are largely of lower value. Capacity building to support processing capability and thriving markets can encourage greater value addition. Preliminary findings suggest early gains at the margins, as SSTT interventions have been focusing on capacity boosting with buffering and bridging mechanisms for increased volume of trade. Moving up the value chain however requires that specific value-enhancing activities continue to be targeted, building on regional capacities. Our high-level case study for spices suggests that activities are starting to have a positive effect; however, more focus is needed to specifically target value creation before export and in particular higher levels of processing.

While findings are preliminary, policy implications emerge to guide SSTT interventions. There is capacity for building higher value-added supply chains as is evident among East African countries that trade with each other – future SSTT programmes could tap into this and help build capacity in these higher-value value chains. Future SSTT programmes can take a comprehensive approach by aiming at interventions at key points of the value chain, and especially at points that facilitate higher value addition than initial processing. An example is that Ethiopia and Rwanda are likely to benefit from an expanded spice industry, but the next phase should be towards building processing for value-addition components of the value chain, such as through trade policies, incentivising exporters to add value to items before export. From a development perspective, more analysis needs to be done on the value chain itself – for instance, trade facilitation measures to help processers engage in value chains and to access investments for increasing value add activities. (iv), Future research should examine more closely the development impacts of SSTT, namely, the connection between increased trade, local job creation and sustained innovation, as it is these tangible benefits that will help countries in the Global South realise the benefits of increased trade.

The paper underlines how the SSTT approach can contribute to the critical IB and GVCs literature using a theoretical grounded approach from public sponsorship theory, and with a unique lens of development cooperation between countries in the global south and its emerging impact on development outcomes in these countries.

This study aims to consider how migrants may act as channel of diffusion of knowledge which contributes to the dynamics of trade and comparative advantages of EU and MENA countries for the period 1990–2015.

Adopting an IV approach and a gravity framework to instrument for migration, the authors document how variations in stocks of migrants coming from (in) countries that are already competitive exporters of a given product impact on the probability that the destination (home) country starts to export competitively new products or succeed in exporting more intensively.

Controlling for potential confounding factors which can be correlated to knowledge flows and productivity shifts, the authors find trade-promoting effects via migration flows (mostly immigration) between the two areas, testing our hypotheses by different technology classes of products and different specifications.

The contribution of this work to the literature is threefold. First, by providing evidence on international knowledge diffusion induced by migration flows between MENA and EU regions, like no other work before, the authors document the effects of migration on trade and comparative advantages. Second, unlike standard literature on migration-trade link, the authors focus more on long-term structural changes in comparative advantages than on trade volumes. Third, we exploit how the effect of migration on margins of trade varies according to different types of goods, classified by technological level.

Many entrepreneurs are able to manage their businesses within relatively contained and familiar geographical and cultural circles. With a world economy shrinking every day amid a flood of digital information, todayʼs entrepreneur is increasingly confronted with opportunities to consider new ways to secure vendors and recruit customers. Many unfamiliar possibilities emerge. Should the entrepreneur venture beyond “comfortable” surroundings to consider international connections? Specifically, what about China? How practical is this fetching business temptation of larger markets and lower-cost subcontractors? What are the social, trade, financial, and political issues? Should a “China strategy” be a true entrepreneurial offensive, or rather a defensive response to competition? Is this “China strategy” the promise of yet another entrepreneurial nirvana? Or is it perhaps again a case of “Be careful of what you wish for; it may really come true?”

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the optimal inflation targets for an appropriate exchange rate policy in 15 major oil exporting countries in Sub-Saharan African (SSA).

Dynamic heterogeneous panel threshold techniques are used via threshold-effect test and threshold regression. This procedure is achieved through a grid search and bootstrapping replications method to stimulate the asymptotic distribution of the likelihood ratio test of the null hypothesis on no-threshold as against the alternative hypothesis. The p-values validate the threshold estimates.

Findings revealed that the optimal inflation target has a turning point and its impact on the real exchange rate is up to a threshold level of 14.47 per cent. Furthermore, the inflation rate above the threshold level overwhelmingly revealed its effect on real exchange regimes.

It would have been a good idea to investigate optimal inflation targets for all African countries but due to inadequate data the selection criteria was narrowed to oil-exporting countries in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Inflation targeting beyond the threshold level would have serious implications on the monetary policy.

To the best of the knowledge, this is the first study to look at optimal inflation targets for 15 major oil exporting countries in general and SSA countries in particular. The findings provide a critical analysis of an inflation regime for a typical oil-producing country that oil exports being their source of revenue.