Tibor Besedes, associate professor in the School of Economics, presented a paper and chaired a session at the 11th Ljubljana Empirical Trade Conference which was held in Izola, Slovenia, June 12-14. At the conference dedicated to empirical research in international trade, Besedes presented his paper titled "Trade Agreements and the Fragility of Trade Relationships" (co-authored with Juan Moreno-Cruz [ECON] and Volker Nitsch of Darmstadt Technical University). The paper made evident that international trade agreements make already existing trade relationships more stable and larger, while they have the opposite effect on trade which starts after the agreement.

On June 17, 2014, Besedes presented his paper "The Effects of Airspace Closures on Trade in the Aftermath of Eyjafjallajökull" at the Paris Trade Seminar jointly organized by the Paris School of Economics, University of Paris I Pantheon Sorbonne, and Sciences Po. The paper estimates the extent to which a disruption to international transportation networks reduces international trade using the 2010 eruption of the Eyjafjallajökull volcano on Iceland as a natural experiment.