A comprehensive inventory of bilateral FTAs on a global scale, with sections on Africa and the Middle East, Asia and the Pacific, and Latin America and the Caribbean. It highlights the key points of each agreement, and details planned future developments. Background paper prepared for the...

The central notion of the natural trading partner hypothesis is that a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) will be welfare enhancing for members if there is a strong level of bilateral trade complementarity among their trade structures. This paper presents an empirical examination of this issue with...

Bridgetown, Barbados 6th – 10th July, 2009

These musings led me to the topic “Caribbean economic development in the post Washington consensus period”. While much of the presentation will relate to the English-speaking Caribbean, and more particularly the member states of the Caribbean community, we are acutely aware that both Lewis...

Neoclassical economic theory asserts that, when market forces determine the prices of goods and services, resources are allocated most efficiently, economies grow faster and populations enjoy higher standards of living. It also argues that free trade helps to promote an efficient allocation of...

The goal of this paper is to deliver to the reader a large number of graphs in order to allow him/her to choose the ones that he/she considers important to form his/her own opinion. Graphs from data are more important than statements which are mainly interpretation and political, but the problem...

This paper examines the relationship between regional economic integration and FDI in North America, where two RIAs have been established over the past decade: a bilateral free trade agreement between Canada and the U.S. (CUSTA) and a trilateral agreement (NAFTA) incorporating Mexico as well....