It is well known that, despite improvements in recent years, a number of LAC countries' exports still remain below their potential and what would be expected judging from their levels of development. The same holds for their degrees of export diversification (Blyde et al., 2014). In addition,...

These two volumes survey the most important scholarly writings in economics and political science that explain the drivers and constraints to freer world trade.

The Americas have been a key driver of regional trade agreements (RTAs) since the 1990s. This study considers the effect of these agreements on trade liberalization, and the lessons that this offers for other parts of the world, notably Asia. It finds broad geographical coverage of RTAs in the...

International trade and the rapidly proliferating network of trade agreements have aroused passions for decades. While some blame trade agreements for exporting jobs, sowing poverty, furthering illegal migration, and robbing national sovereignty, others praise them as lynchpins of growth,...

Preferential trading arrangements (PTAs) have proliferated spectacularly over the past decade around the world. Countries in the Western Hemisphere have been particularly prolific builders of PTAs, forging in a veritable spaghetti bowl of multiple and often overlapping agreements. Rules of...

This book assesses the impact and design of optimal strategies to implement existing agreements. It deals with issues such as removing the remaining barriers to trade, improving the institutional, regional, and global trade architecture, and promoting convergence and accumulation among the...

The purpose of this document is to inform Bank staff and other interested parties about recent developments in integration and trade among the countries of the Western Hemisphere and between these and other countries and world regions.

This paper maps out Rules of Origin (RoO) in regional trade agreements (RTAs) around the world, and observes that the restrictiveness and complexity of RoO are driven by factors specific to each RTA, including economy size and level of development.

This document summarizes the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) experience as one of the main sources of multilateral development financing in Latin America and the Caribbean. From 2000 to 2005, total financing for economic, social and institutional development projects amounted to US$38.7...

Regional trade agreements (RTAs) have proliferated over the past decade around the world to cover nearly half of global trade. The number of RTAs notified to the WTO is approaching 200, while the total number of RTAs around the world exceeds 300. The global RTA spree has forged a veritable...