The Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement (FTA) provides a unique window on the effects of trade liberalization. It was an … unusually clean trade policy exercise in that it was not bundled into a larger package of macroeconomic or market reforms. This … flow from trade liberalization. For industries subject to large tariff cuts (these are typically low-end' manufacturing …

We describe recent work on the theory of trade agreements that speaks to the purpose and design of GATT. Our discussion … proceeds in three steps. First, we examine the purpose of a trade agreement. In both the traditional economic and the political …-economy approaches to the study of trade agreements, the problem for a trade agreement to solve is the excessive protection that arises …

of a country's trade policy decisions, and hence can deliver efficient trade-policy outcomes for its member governments … provided that the externa- lities associated with trade intervention travel through world prices. We then establish that … trading system. The introduction of free trade agreements com- plicates the way in which externalities are transmitted across …

Four years after passing the infamous Smoot-Hawley tariff in 1930, Congress enacted the Reciprocal Trade Agreements Act …) with foreign countries. The resulting trade agreements reduced U.S. tariffs and culminated in the General Agreement on … Tariffs and Trade (GATT) in 1947. Was the Great Depression responsible for bringing about this fundamental shift in U.S. trade …

This paper discusses the likely evolution of the trade and environment issue in the World Trade Organization after the … evolution of the trade and environment issue. Developments seem likely to be driven in the next few years as much by factors … outside the GATT/WTO as well as within it, as new global environmental arrangements, some with potentially large trade …

Why do governments seek restrictions on the use of export subsidies through reciprocal trade agreements such as GATT …

. These include conventional access benefits, but extend to safe haven concerns, the use of trade arrangements to underpin … security arrangements, and tactical interplay between multilateral and regional trade negotiating positions. In a final section …

This paper reviews the history of bilateral trade negotiations between Taiwan and the U.S. The question posed at the … negative answer. Bilateral negotiations for market opening with the threat of unilateral trade sanctions (such as Section 301 … action) tend to encourage trade preferences and U.S. negotiators are inclined to accept such preferential arrangements in …

Suppose that an opportunity arises for two countries to negotiate a free trade agreement (FTA). Will an FTA between … bilateral trade and when a few, politically sensitive sectors can be excluded from the agreement …

. Furthermore, in a free trade agreement with the United States, Mexico has an incentive to concentrate production on those sectors … designed to maintain wages of low-skilled workers. With or without a free trade agreement. the United States faces a … substantial problem with the continuing economic deterioration of the lowest skilled workers. A free trade agreement with Mexico …