Almost all participants in free trade agreements (FTAs) exclude at least a few products or sectors from complete tariff removal on the exports of their FTA partners. The positive tariffs that remain within an FTA are often the highest tariffs that the countries apply on an MFN basis. It seems...

This paper provides an alternative analytical view of the mechanism by which interest groups influence trade policy. In contrast to other economic models in which trade policy is essentially "bought" by industrial interests, this model views interest groups and legislators as possibly sharing...

There is a wide disparity of views on issues of international labor standards. The purpose of this paper is to explore these different views and the available options for addressing the issues involved. We conclude that there is no convincing case for incorporating labor standards into the WTO...