Regional trade agreements must specify domestic-content rules (rules of origin) that define the conditions under which a good qualifies as 'domestic' and so may be freely traded within the block. The paper analyzes such rules, focussing in particular on oligopolistic industries in which foreign...

We examine the sensitivity of simple calibration models of trade in imperfectly competitive industries to changes in model specification, as well as to changes in the calibration parameters. We find that not just the magnitude, but also the sign of the optimal trade policies is very sensitive to...

Several of the recently negotiated regional trade agreements (Canada-U.S., NAFTA, E.C.-Hungary/Poland/Czeck and Slovak Republics) contain significantly fewer concessions by the large countries to smaller countries than vice versa. Yet, it is small countries that have sought them and see...

After signing ten free trade agreements between 1993 and 2001, Mexico as a world leader in foreign trade policy continues to negotiate with countries such as Japan, Panama, Uruguay or Argentina. Criticism of multiple regional trade agreements (RTAs) arises from a consistency test, but also from...

Throughout U.S. history, import tariffs have been put on a sustained downward path in only two instances: from the early-1830s until the Civil War and from the mid-1930s to the present. This paper analyzes how the movement toward higher tariffs in the 1820s was reversed for the rest of the...

China has been increasingly active on the regional trade agreement front over since WTO Accession occurred in 2001. These agreements, unlike the US and EU cases, follow no template form of agreement but vary substantially one among the others and are in part an attempt to customize agreements to...

It is well known that various forms of non-tariff trade barriers exist within a country. Empirically, it is difficult to measure these barriers as they can take many forms. We take advantage of a nationwide VAT rebate policy reform in China as a natural experiment to identify the existence of...

Motivated by increasing trade and fragmentation of production across countries, accompanied by income convergence by many emerging economies, we build a dynamic two-country model featuring sequential, multi-stage production and capital accumulation. As trade costs decline over time,...