This paper examines the impact of the Australia-Thailand free trade agreement (TAFTA) on bilateral trade between the two countries, paying attention to the implications of rules of origins (RoO) and the utilization of tariff preferences. It is found that trade has expanded faster following TAFTA...

There is a strong presumption among economists that domestic reforms are promoted by regionalism. Yet strong empirical evidence for this proposition is lacking. The purpose of the paper is to examine in some detail both the theoretical arguments and empirical evidence on this issue, drawing on...

Using the international investment regime as its point of departure, the paper introduces notions of bounded rationality to the study of economic diplomacy. Through a multi-method approach, it shows that developing countries often ignored the risks of bilateral investment treaties (BITs) until...

This paper documents and analyzes emerging patterns of trade and foreign direct investment in Asia with a view to informing the contemporary policy debate on multilateralizing regionalism. The key theme running through the paper is the pivotal role of global production sharing in transforming...

A widely-held view in the lead-up to the abolition of the Multi-fiber Arrangement (MFA) quotas in 2005 was that, in a quota-free global market, large low cost countries (in particular China and India) and countries in proximity to the major markets (such as Mexico, Turkey and countries in the...

Given the urgency and the magnitude of emission cuts required to arrest the global temperature rise at an acceptable level (like 2 degrees Celsius), it is imperative that action to mitigate climate change is taken at the lowest cost. This can be done if a cost effective set of policy tools with...

The Doha climate talks in December 2012, wrapped up lines of negotiation that were begun years before in Bali. Negotiators resolved contentious questions about the future of the Kyoto Protocol and finally put the constraints of the Bali agenda behind them. Now they need turn to developing by...

Global production sharing—the break-up of the production process into geographically separated stages—is an increasingly important facet of economic globalization that opens up opportunities for countries to specialize in different slices (tasks) of the production process depending...

Landlockedness imposes additional costs on trade and reduces the international competitiveness. This paper examines the determinants of export performance of landlocked developing countries (LLDCs) compared to other developing countries using the standard gravity modelling framework. The results...

This paper examines the implications of Nepal’s exchange rate policy for its export performance over the period 1980–2010. We first document Nepal’s long-standing currency peg against the Indian rupee and that Nepal’s real exchange rate appreciated substantially from the late 1990s. We...