This thesis proves that Venezuela is going through the so called and shows all the effects of this disease to international trade indicators and finally evaluates which proposal how to help Venezuela to deal with it is most in line with the empirical data from World Bank and FRED. All the empirical evidences for Dutch disease worldwide effects are demonstrated on Oman, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Ghana and Norway. The hypothesis about influences of Dutch disease on international trade of Venezuela was proved and discussed by correlation analysis. Among key focused metrics are included GDP growth, Exports and Imports of goods and services, Unemployment, General government final consumption expenditure and Real effective exchange rate.

The diploma thesis titled Impact of business cycle on manufacturing industry in the Czech Republic deals with the manufacturing industrial production and its dependence on the current economic situation of two crucial trading partners of the Czech Republic, i.e. Federal Republic of Germany and France. At the very beginning the business cycle theory is defined, its evolution in selected countries is presented and the immense importance and great potential of the manufacturing industry in the Czech economy are described. Also, the given data are analysed and compared in order to find the relationship between the variables. Finally, the obtained results and outcomes are supported with a case study introducing a particular company and its figures.

The thesis is to provide comprehensive efficiency analysis of road transport intermediaries in terms of international trade between the Commonwealth of Independent States and the European Union. The analysis establishes particular patterns and provides solutions of how to increase financial effectiveness of the supply chain in case freight forwarding companies are involved in the process.

This thesis assesses and describes two main current trends appearing at the crude oil market, specifically re-entry of Iran back to the crude oil market after termination of economic sanctions and current oil glut. First part of this thesis is devoted to the crude oil as resource, it focuses mainly on the history, formation and mining of crude oil. Second part of this thesis focuses on the international trade with crude oil. It analyses data regarding reserves, production, consumption, export and import of crude oil, as well as it describes the OPEC organization. Third part is devoted to the organization of the market with crude oil and describes three main motives of entering to the crude oil market. There are analyzed current trends on the crude oil market in the last part of this thesis.

The Thesis analyses the impact that humanly devised institutions, defined as “formal and informal constraints on political, economic, and social interactions”, have on international trade and the patterns comparative advantage. The key assumption of the Thesis is that although institutions impact on the whole economy they may influence some sectors more than others. Industry‘s dependence on institutions is a technological feature of production. Hence, for example, industries that require a large number of intermediate inputs for production will be more dependent on the quality of contract enforcement regulation for their growth. The Thesis analyses 4 different sub-components of institutional quality: contract enforcement, financial development, property rights and labour market institutions. The Thesis’ hypotheses regarding each of these sub-components are as follows: 1. Countries with more efficient contract enforcement regulations will specialize (have a comparative advantage) in more complex sectors that depend on contracts with suppliers/producers for their growth.2. Countries with more secure property rights will specialize in sectors that are more dependent on intangible assets for production.3. Countries with higher financial development will have a comparative advantage in sectors that are more dependent on external finance for their growth.4. Countries with more flexible labour markets will specialize in more volatile industries. In order to test these assumptions we construct three econometric models (Chapters 4-6). In Chapter 4 we assess how contract enforcement regulations, financial development, property rights and labour market institutions impact on trade volumes using a well-known gravity model. In Chapter 5 we test whether these sub-components have an impact on growth of value-added at industry level. Finally, in chapter 6 the impact on firms’ productivity is tested. The results show that contract enforcement regulations and financial development affect countries’ comparative advantage by affecting countries trade flows, value-added and productivity in a way consistent with the hypothesis. The results regarding the other two institutional sub-components are mixed but we do find some evidence the countries with more secure property rights export more and have higher value-added growth in sectors that are more dependent on intangible assets. These results are robust to different specifications. Using a novel set of instrumental variables we show that causality runs from institutions to trade, value-added and productivity rather than the reverse. We supplement the empirical evidence with a case-study of Lesotho’s textiles and garment industry and also find some evidence that this export-oriented industry emerged in Lesotho at least partly due to this country’s good institutions that are better than its African competitors. From a policy perspective our results imply that institutional and regulatory reform - especially in enforcement of contracts and financial sector regulations - may enhance the capacity of poor countries to move up to specialization into higher-valued products and to reap benefits from international integration.

With the advent of the internet and the development of Information and Communication technology, new reinvented forms of Trade Promotion Organizations have emerged. The globalization of today’s trading environment has forced economies to prioritize the development of the export competitiveness of their SMEs sector, as to be able to survive amidst the fierce global competition. The digital economy has created new means and channels of overcoming barriers of trade faced by SMEs due to their size and limited resources. To this end the International trade center has launched the Global Trade Point Network in 1993. The objective of this new electronic form of TPO is to assist firms in developing countries to explore business opportunities effectively by providing them with targeted market information and facilitating exporting procedures at a relatively low cost. With the expanding number of interconnected Trade Points, The GTPNet is rising to be the main global network for trade-related information streams. This study explored the extent of usefulness of these trade points in providing SMEs with real export opportunities as well as boosting their export competitiveness in Egypt, due to it being the one country with the highest number of operating trade points. The study used a mixed sequential methodology, combining both a semi structured interview based qualitative analysis followed by a questionnaire based large scale survey. This study was built around the theory of stages of internationalization, to reflect the fact that SMEs in the new evolving digital environment, are still in need of acquiring export market knowledge throughout the different stages of the internationalization process through secondary sources. Export market-knowledge as a firm resource boosts its competitive position and in turn to increased commitment to the export operation. On a theoretical level, a perceived usefulness construct for International trade points has been developed using exploratory factor analysis that paves the way to empirical tests of the different recommendations in the export promotion literature. The domain incorporates a new factor pertinent to the unique nature of International trade points, as being dependent on an electronic matching system supported by a global network, the proposed definition and usefulness of International trade points provides a conceptual framework in an area where little prior research has been conducted. Based on the findings, Egyptian Small and Medium Enterprises did not appreciate this new developed service due to their lack of e-readiness and resilience to engage in this process. From a practical perspective, the study has supported the findings of previous empirical studies, that pointed out that Export promotion Organizations are not targeting the real potential disadvantaged firms as committed exporters with high export intensity were the main recipients of successful trading opportunities through International Trade Points, as well as the ones that perceived these governmental sponsored organizations to be more useful. Moreover, the study revealed the shortcomings in the performance of International trade points, which are to a great extent attributable to their inefficient governmental organizational and managerial structure.

There has been very little research in the area of air cargo demand analysis and forecasting. This thesis attempts to investigate the application of gravity models to air cargo. Using international export volumes from Vancouver International Airport in 1998, a gravity model was built. The inclusion of tariffs as an impedance factor allowed testing of the effect of tariffs as predicted by gravity models. The results were consistent with international trade theory that tariffs provide a barrier to international trade. Further, a comparison is made between aggregate and disaggregate models (across commodities). It was found that aggregation eliminates commodity specific characteristics. In using the gravity model, there are two adjustments which need to be made to reduce the bias in the model: firstly, adjustment is necessary to the bias inherent in the constant term of a log-linear model; and a further adjustment is required when forecasting actual levels rather than log levels. Even after adjustments for both types of bias, the gravity model did not produce accurate forecasts. The aggregate model produced better forecasts than the disaggregate model, but both sets of forecasts did not accurately predict the actual volumes transported. This could be as a result of the stable nature of the variables included in the model, which tend to change very slowly over time. Further, it is apparent that other additional explanatory variables should be included in the models to better capture the short-term changes in air cargo. / Business, Sauder School of / Graduate

Based on the gravity model by Baier and Bergstrand (2001), we use a static and dynamic panel data approach to estimate the relative contributions of income growth, income convergence, and the reductions in tariffs and trade costs to the growth of intra-EU trade over the period 1960 to 2000. The results suggest that income growth was the major force, accounting for approximately two third of total growth. Trade liberalization still had a sizeable effect, accounting de facto for the rest of growth, while income convergence played only a minor role. Reductions in trade costs had no significant effect on the growth of intra- EU trade. The results turn out as robust against several robustness checks and the use of alternative estimators. / Series: EI Working Papers / Europainstitut

The aim of this thesis is to analyze existing approaches to providing development assistance and participation of developing countries in international trade and assess both developing and commercial cooperation between the Czech Republic and Southeast Asia. The first chapter is the theoretical part of the thesis, which is focused on the theories of economic development and growth of underdeveloped countries. The second chapter deals with the openness of the markets of Southeast Asia. The main part consists of the analysis of international development cooperation and trade relations between the Czech Republic and this region.

In August 2012, after eighteen years, Russia was officially accepted as a member of WTO, which allows it to capitalize on many advantages that arise from international trade but also brings a lot of commitments. The aim of this paper is to investigate the obligations that Russia undertook during WTO access procedures and to determine, based on the structure of its foreign trade, the effects of Russia's WTO accession on its economy, as well as the level of its influence on trade relations with the USA, EU and China.