We examine if a trade policy tool designed for fostering development is used strategically. We study this question using GSP country eligibility reviews regarding worker rights violations.

We present new causal evidence that political connections to U.S. legislators are valuable for individual firms. We also estimate that almost all of the value generated by connections to the U.S. legislators can be attributed to their influence over and above their formal committee assignments in Congress.

Using a new unique dataset on the prices of perishable commodities traded across several markets, and associated transport costs, we investigate the extent of market integration in Ghana and test the law of one price.

Under the Generalized Scheme of Preferences (GSP), rich countries grant unilateral trade preferences to developing countries. We study the EU’s withdrawal of GSP preferences from Belarus in 2007 to understand how the GSP a ects export patterns. The withdrawal caused a signi cant drop in trade for a ected products (26%-29% trade decline) and some trade reduction at the extensive margin. However, there is little evidence of a GSP e ect on total trade. This is due to the fact that the main exports of Belarus were not eligible for the GSP program.

This is the Final Report for the project Corporate Engagement in Fighting Corruption and Tax Evasion. The project, financed by the Nordic Council of Ministers, includes three partners: Transparency International Latvia (Delna, host organisation), Transparency International Finland and BEROC, a research institute in Minsk, Belarus. The aim is to engage entrepreneurs in fighting corruption and tax evasion, with a focus on municipal construction procurements in Latvia, Belarus and Finland.

The paper determines episodes of financial stress in Belarus during 2004-2016 period using constructed financial stress index, and offers an analytical framework to evaluate the influence of financial turmoil on Belarus's economy, in particular economic activity and monetary policy. The findings show evidence of two episodes of financial stress and two episodes of recessions in Belarus during studied period. The results from the estimated ARDL models show that high level of financial stress causes the substantial downturn in economic activity of Belarus. Moreover, the results of Toda and Yamamoto causality analysis indicate that higher financial stress in Belarus has led to lower economic activity that caused higher inflation, which in turn led to higher policy rate introduced in order to constrain inflation in Belarus. Finally, from theoretical point of view results also signify that there is no evidence for the support of the conventional wisdom hypothesis in Belarus since 2004. Therefore, price stability is not a sufficient condition to support financial stability in Belarus and should certainly be addressed independently of the objective of price stability of the National Bank of Belarus.