Publication: Regional Trade Agreements
Date
2010-05-01
ISSN
Published
2010-05-01
Author(s)
Abstract
This paper reviews the theoretical and
empirical literature on regionalism. The formation of
regional trade agreements has been, by far, the most popular
form of reciprocal trade liberalization in the past 15
years. The discriminatory character of these agreements has
raised three main concerns: that trade diversion would be
rampant, because special interest groups would induce
governments to form the most distortionary agreements; that
broader external trade liberalization would stall or
reverse; and that multilateralism could be undermined.
Theoretically, all of these concerns are legitimate,
although there are also several theoretical arguments that
oppose them. Empirically, neither widespread trade diversion
nor stalled external liberalization has materialized, while
the undermining of multilateralism has not been properly
tested. There are also several aspects of regionalism that
have received too little attention from researchers, but
which are central to understanding its causes and consequences.
Citation
“Freund, Caroline; Ornelas, Emanuel. 2010. Regional Trade Agreements. Policy Research working paper ; no. WPS 5314. © http://hdl.handle.net/10986/3799 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.”
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