Countries embarking on trade negotiations are not only seeking increased market access, but also, reduced market opacity. This study distils the most progressive practices for promoting regulatory transparency in over one hundred regional trade agreements (RTAs) concluded by OECD and large...

What influences the adoption of transparency obligations in trade agreements, and what are its effects? This paper uses a new dataset on transparency provisions in over a hundred regional trade agreements (RTAs) to provide empirical evidence of the political economy determinants of international...

As each new round of multilateral trade negotiations approaches, there is a demand for a negotiating rule that would give credit for autonomous liberalization. This Paper shows that the desirability and feasibility of such a rule depends on when it is instituted. A credit rule established at the...

The potential multilateralisation of government procurement commitments in regional trade agreements (RTAs) presents many issues and challenges. To what extent do RTAs go beyond the 2012 revised Agreement on Government Procurement (GPA), and how do they differ among trading partners? This report...

The paper develops two synthetic measures at the HS-10 level to depict effective market access for a country receiving preferential access and applies these to the market access ASEAN members would receive on impact following the implementation of an FTA with the EU. These measures reveal quite...

Trade-diversion effects of free trade agreements (FTAs) have not been thoroughly examined empirically. Using a novel empirical approach, we confirm that FTAs divert trade away from non-member countries and even more so from internal trade (domestic sales) in member countries.

This report examines services schedules of commitments in 56 regional trade agreements (RTAs) where an OECD country is a party. The preferential content of RTAs is assessed through an analysis of market access and national treatment commitments at the level of the 155 sub-sectors of the General...

What influences the adoption of transparency obligations in trade agreements, and what are its effects? This paper uses a new dataset on transparency provisions in over a hundred regional trade agreements (RTAs) to provide empirical evidence of the political economy determinants of international...

Countries embarking on trade negotiations are not only seeking increased market access, but also, reduced market opacity. This study distils the most progressive practices for promoting regulatory transparency in over one hundred regional trade agreements (RTAs) concluded by OECD and large...

Over the past decade, an increasing number of economies have resorted to regional trade agreements (RTAs) as a means to further the market-opening and rule-making agenda. In this context, this paper addresses the question as to whether and how selected elements of RTAs could be used as...