We compare free trade reached through expanding regional trading blocks to free trade accomplished by multilateral negotiation. With sunk costs, the outcomes are different. Trade in an imperfectly competitive good flows disproportionately more between the original members of a regional agreement...

This paper examines the dynamics of current account adjustment among industrialized countries. We identify twenty-five episodes in which a large sustained improvement in the current account occurred between 1980 and 1997. We find that a typical current account reversal begins when the current...

The Internet stimulates trade. Using a gravity equation of trade among 56 countries, we find no evidence of an effect of the Internet on total trade flows in 1995 and only weak evidence of an effect in 1996. However, we find an increasing and significant impact from 1997 to 1999. Specifically,...

This paper examines the welfare implications of multiple free trade agreements in a model of imperfect competition. We show that free trade is the unique Nash equilibrium under the simple rule that any two countries can form a bilateral free trade agreement. Specifically, a country is always...

This paper studies the dynamics of trade reorientation experienced when a country joins a regional trade bloc. We find that the joining country's trade orientation toward bloc countries typically rises along an `S'-shaped path. We estimate the size, speed, and timing of this adjustment path for...

This paper examines the interaction between preferential trade agreements (PTAs) and multilateral tariff reduction in a model of imperfect competition. A growing literature finds that the formation of PTAs alters the incentives for and the sustainability of multilateral tariff reduction. We show...

We study the effects of trade barriers and the persistence of past linkages on trade flows in the former Soviet Union (FSU). Estimating gravity equations on 1987-1996 trade among and between nine Russian regions and fourteen FSU republics, we find that Russian regions traded 60 percent more with...