Spatial market equilibrium theory views trade flows as the driving force behind market integration. We assess the price linkages between five major tomato markets in Ghana to ascertain whether spatial price transmission depends solely on direct trade between markets, or whether other forces...

The impact of cross-sectional aggregation over individual retail stores on the estimation and testing of vertical price transmission between the wholesale and retail levels is investigated using a unique data set of individual retail prices in Germany. Systematic differences between the results...

Analysis of price transmission in transition countries is often complicated by unstable policy environments. We use a Markov-switching vector error-correction model (MSVECM) to model multiple regime shifts in the relationship between wheat and wheat flour prices in Ukraine from June 2000 to...

Applied general and partial equilibrium models are widely used tools for ex ante analysis of trade policy changes. However, simulation results seem to exhibit significant variation across publications, and the often criticised ‘black box’ character of applied trade models makes meaningful...

Quantification of welfare changes due to trade liberalization plays a crucial role for political decision making. However, significant differences in simulated gains from liberalization do not serve to increase confidence in quantitative assessments based on trade models. A meta-analysis of...

Model-based simulation of welfare effects is commonly used to make a case for trade liberalisation and to inform participants and stakeholders in trade negotiations. However, the simulated welfare effects of trade liberalisation vary greatly, even across studies that model similar liberalisation...

The policy preference function (PPF) approach has become popular with economists seeking to explain the origin of government policies. In this paper, a distinction between positive and normative work with the PPF concept is made. Positive work is shown to suffer from a variety of shortcomings...