This paper shows that the WTO's Article XXIV increases the likelihood of free trade, but may worsen world welfare when free trade is not reached and customs unions (CUs) form.  We consider a model of many countries.  Article XXIV prevents a CU from raising its common external tariff, which...

We show that relaxing the assumption of CES preferences in monopolistic competition has surprising implications when trade is restricted.  Integrated and segmented markets behave differently, the latter typically exhibiting reciprocal dumping.  Globalization and lower trade costs have...

We introduce two new tools for relating preferences and demand to firm behavior and economic performance.  The "Demand Manifold" links the elasticity and convexity of an arbitrary demand function; the "Utility Manifold" links the elasticity and concavity of an arbitrary utility function. ...

We provide a general characterization of which firms will select alternative ways of serving a market.  If and only if firms' maximum profits are supermodular in production and market-access costs, more efficient firms will select into the activity with lower market-access costs.  Our result...

This paper analyses GATT/WTO trade negotiations in an oligopolistic multi-country setting and identifies a new rationale for trade agreements.  When set unilaterally, tariffs are inefficiently high, both for familiar terms-of-trade reasons, but also to restrict market access of foreign firms. ...

Analyses of the Asian crisis have focused excessively on the financial sector, especially the banks. The role of the real sector in exposing the financial system to stress has been under-emphasized. This paper provides a real-sector explanation for the Thai crisis of 1997, demonstrating the role...

This article explains the part that Meade played in the creation of Keynes`s General Theory, describes his work with Keynes during the Second World War in the creation of the IMF and the GATT, and summarizes the ideas in The Theory of International Economic Policy for which Meade was awarded the...

We develop a stylized real model of the Asian crisis where an adverse extenal shock can lead to real exchange rate overshooting. Domestic borrowers of foreign capital are bound by debt contracts even when the capital is unable to earn the world rate of return. Following an adverse shock, the...

This paper contains a General Equilibrium model of an economy with Incomplete Markets (GEI) with money and default. The model is a simplified version of the real world consisting of a non-bank private sector, banks, a Central Bank, a government and a regulator. The model is used to analyse...