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Environmental regulation is an effective tool to control environmental problems caused by foreign trade. Research conclusions are inconsistent on the relationship between environmental regulations and exports. Based on the Heckscher-Ohlin-Vanek model, this paper provides an empirical analysis for examination the effect of environmental regulations on manufacturing exports, adopting panel data of 16 sectors from China’s manufacturing during 2005-2015. Material capital, human capital, technology input and foreign direct investment are simultaneously selected as independent variables to explore the export impact of corresponding changes in these endowments. The pollution intensity index was introduced to categorise different manufacturing sectors. Results indicated that China’s environmental regulations intensity play different roles in the manufacturing sectors with different pollution levels. Stricter environmental regulation improves the export of intensive pollution manufacturing sectors but hinders exports in light pollution sectors. Meanwhile, other endowment factors also exert varying effects in the light, moderate and intensive pollution manufacturing sectors.

Investment in ICT infrastructure development is crucial to international trade through its provision of reliable interconnectedness via communication. This can be augmented via institutional intervention, which addresses opportunistic or rent-seeking behaviours of ICT infrastructure providers and reduces operational costs, among others. However, ICT infrastructural provision in West Africa remains low, necessitating the current drive by the regional economic community (ECOWAS) to make some advancement in this regard for enhanced trade outcomes of members. With the aim of unbundling institutional framework in the infrastructure-export nexus, this study empirically examines the relationship between manufacturing export and ICT infrastructure and articulates how economic and political institutions influence such interaction. Focusing on 14 West African countries, the study uses the Systems Generalised Method of Moments (SGMM) technique to address possible issues of endogeneity and reverse causality. The results reveal that in the face of improved economic and political institutions, particularly those related to enforcement of contracts, the influence of ICT infrastructure in strengthening the exporting capacity from the manufacturing sector is greater. In addition, some measures of economic and political institutions matter more than others. The study recommends that ECOWAS countries promote better institutional quality, particularly in terms of transparency, accountability, corruption control, regulatory quality and the rule of law.

This paper investigates the causes of Turkish export-boom after 2000 in the manufacturing sector. We mainly concentrate on cost and productivity aspects of the production in the manufacturing sector. Effects of productivity, wage and exchange rate are analyzed in the framework of the augmented unit labor cost model. Following the Edwards and Golub (2004) paper we use the dynamic panel data techniques for the analysis. In addition, the importance of the above mentioned factors is examined for the rising and declining sectors. We find that manufacturing export is negatively related to the unit labor cost (ULC). Decomposition of ULC into its two components also shows that an improvement in productivity increases export while an increase in nominal wages decreases it. We also find that nominal wage is an important factor in the declining sectors while productivity is the stimulus in rising sectors.

This paper examines Turkey’s international cost competitiveness in manufacturing with respect to the Slovak Republic, and quantitatively investigates the relationship between Turkish cost competitiveness and the exports of manufactured goods at an industry level. The Relative Unit Labor Cost (RULC) measure and dynamic panel data techniques are employed for this analysis. We find that Turkey is not competitive with respect to Slovakia for the 1995-1999 period. The Competitiveness of Slovakia mainly depends on its relatively higher level of labor productivity.