Bilateral investment treaties (BITs), agreements that provide extensive rights and protection to foreign investors, were first adopted in the 1960s, proliferated in the late 1980s and 1990s, especially among developing countries, and seemingly fell out of fashion after 2001. To explain this life...

Societal theories of trade policy stress the importance of domestic interest groups, whereas statist theories focus on the effects of domestic institutions. Debates over the relative merits of these approaches have been fierce, but little systematic empirical research has been brought to bear on...