Trump's withdrawal from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and his “America First” trade agenda ignite a second round of interest in mega-free trade agreements in the Asia-Pacific. Countries are evaluating alternative trade policy actions in a post-TPP era. Using national real GDP gains...

This paper empirically confronts one explanation of spreading regionalism with the European experience. The domino theory asserts that forming a preferential trade area, or deepening an existing one, produces trade diversion that generates new political-economy forces in third nations as...