The number of preferential trade agreements has greatly increased over the past two decades, yet most existing bilateral arrangements take the form of free trade areas, and less than ten percent can be considered to be fully fledged customs unions. This paper develops a political economy model...

Kee, Olarreaga, and Silva assess the foreign lobbying forces behind the tariff preferences that the United States grants to Latin American and Caribbean countries. The authors extend the basic framework developed by Grossman and Helpman (1994) to explain the relationship between foreign lobbying...

The number of preferential trade agreements has greatly increased over the past two decades, yet most existing bilateral arrangements take the form of free trade areas, and less than ten percent can be considered to be fully °edged customs unions. This paper develops a political economy model...