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"The effects of Regional Trade Agreements (RTAs) are disputed. In this paper, we assess these effects using capital market data and an event-study approach, using a daily data set covering a thousand announcements spanning over eighty economies and a hundred RTAs over twenty recent years. We measure the effects of news concerning RTAs on the returns of national stock markets, adjusted for international stock market movements. We then link these excess returns to features of the RTA members and the agreements themselves. We find evidence of the natural trading partner hypothesis; stock markets rise more when RTAs are signed between countries that already engage in high volumes of trade. Stock markets also rise more when poorer countries sign RTAs"--National Bureau of Economic Research web site

Sovereign risk is defined as a country?s ability-to-pay and willingness-to-pay its debt. This paper examines how cabinet reshuffles affecting the ministry of finance or economics are perceived by sovereign bond holders in twelve Latin American countries from 1992 to 2005. We find that such political news instantaneously increases bond spreads. Furthermore, spreads trend significantly upward in the 40 days leading up to the minister change, before flattening out on a higher level in the 40 days thereafter. Evidence suggests that uncertainty about the future course of economic policy and the government?s willingness-to-pay increases refinancing costs for respective emerging markets.

We analyze stock market reactions to announcements of political appointments from the private sector and corporate appointments of former government officials. Using unique data on corporate affiliations and announcements of all Senate-confirmed U.S. Defense Department appointees of six administrations, we find positive abnormal returns for political appointments. These estimates are not driven by important observations, volatile stocks, industry-wide developments or the omission of further commonly used return predictors. Placebo events for close competitors and alternative dates yield no effects. Effects are larger for top government positions and less anticipated announcements. We also find positive abnormal returns for corporate appointments and positive effects of political connections on procurement volume. Our results suggest that concerns over conflicts of interest created by the revolving door are not unfounded, even in a country with strong institutions.

We analyze stock market reactions to announcements of political appointments from the private sector and corporate appointments of former government officials. Using unique data on corporate affiliations and announcements of all Senate-confirmed U.S. Defense Department appointees of six administrations, we find positive abnormal returns for political appointments. These estimates are not driven by important observations, volatile stocks or industry-wide developments. Placebo events yield no effects. Effects are larger for top government positions and less anticipated announcements. We also find positive abnormal returns for corporate appointments. Our results suggest that conflicts of interest matter also in a country with strong institutions.

We analyze stock market reactions to announcements of political appointments from the private sector and corporate appointments of former government officials. Using unique data on corporate affiliations and announcements of all Senate-confirmed U.S. Defense Department appointees of six administrations, we find positive abnormal returns for political appointments. These estimates are not driven by important observations, volatile stocks or industry-wide developments. Placebo events yield no effects. Effects are larger for top government positions and less anticipated announcements. We also find positive abnormal returns for corporate appointments. Our results suggest that conflicts of interest matter also in a country with strong institutions.

The Doha multilateral round of trade negotiations sponsored by the WTO has been dragging on for over a decade, with no end in sight. In this short paper we assess empirically what determines the duration of trade negotiations, focusing on the span between the start of trade talks and their conclusion. We use data from 88 regional trade agreements between 1988 and 2009, and a semi-parametric Cox proportional hazards model. Four factors are robust determinants of the length of RTA negotiations. Negotiations are more protracted when there are more countries at the negotiation table, and when the countries are not from the same region. Negotiations between more open and richer countries are also finished more quickly.

We analyze stock market reactions to announcements of political appointments from the private sector and corporate appointments of former government officials. Using unique data on corporate affiliations and announcements of all Senate-confirmed U.S. Defense Department appointees of six administrations, we find positive abnormal returns for political appointments. These estimates are not driven by important observations, volatile stocks or industry-wide developments. Placebo events yield no effects. Effects are larger for top government positions and less anticipated announcements. We also find positive abnormal returns for corporate appointments. Our results suggest that conflicts of interest matter also in a country with strong institutions.

Labor market studies on the effects of minimum wages are typically confined to the sector or worker group directly affected. We present a two-sector search model in which one sector is more productive than the other one and thus, pays higher wages. In such a framework, setting a minimum wage in the unproductive sector to reduce the wage gap causes a negative spillover effect on the productive sector. While the effect on job creation in the (targeted) unproductive sector is ambiguous, job creation in the (non-targeted) productive sector unambiguously decreases. This is driven by the fact that a minimum wage increases the outside option of unemployed workers - contributing to wage determination in the productive sector. Welfare effects are ambiguous. In principle, we cannot exclude that a minimum wage in a two-sector search model is welfare enhancing due to the possibility of an above optimal level of productive employment since firms do not take into account the effects of their individual job creation on aggregated search costs.