Blog

The image of the world economy in the past years has been one of a slowing tanker, running only on one engine. The developing part of the world, or what in today’s language is called the fast...

I wrote here about the French peculiar ban against online booking of taxis. Well, yesterday our friends at the FT report that the law has been revoked by the State Council of France. We claim...

No rest for the wicked – after declaring war on books and taxis, it took the Hollande government less than a week to come back with a new tax on something digital. This time, the crosshair is on...

A couple of days before Brussels shut down for winter holidays, I was reached by an email that my op-ed on internet taxation in France and Italy is one of the most popular articles on European...

After twelve years of tedious negotiations, only a fraction of the original Doha mandate remains. One is filled with certain surprise and relief, as the news of the Bali agreement reach us on...

The recovery of the UK economy has puzzled many economists. It contradicts the views of those that have warned for a prolonged recession because of the country’s fiscal consolidation. That the...

I was asked by a big Chinese news agency to provide a short comment on the health of China-EU trade relations. Here it is: Trade growth between China and the European Union in the past ten years has...

To clarify, ECIPE proposed the International Digital Economy Agreement (IDEA for short) in 2010 to expand the WTO IT Agreement (ITA) to cover both goods and services. In March 2012, this idea was...

If you believe the Western press, we are approaching a major conflict over the Senkaku islands or Diaoyus, depending on who you side with. There is little interest for an outsider to have an...

The paradox of modern trade policy is that it is painfully difficult to stitch together a global trade deal despite economies being ever more densely integrated with another. The WTO is the premier...