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...

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...

The deepening US-China trade war and two new megaregional trade agreements, the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) and the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), are reshaping the landscape of East Asian trade. The CPTPP and RCEP are moving...

Membership in customs unions (CU) has proliferated in past decades; globally, 81 countries are now part of a CU. Much of this growth has been driven by countries upgrading their links from a free trade agreement (FTA) to CU. At the same time, the rapid formation of new FTAs among countries that...

While “mega FTAs” and WTO-driven efforts at multilateral liberalisation dominate the agenda, customs unions (CU) are the silent success story of regional integration. Throughout the world, CUs have been superseding earlier FTAs, as new unions were formed or old ones expanded. Due to problems...

In understanding the proliferation of free trade agreements (FTAs) in Asia since 2000, it is important to distinguish between two types of FTAs in terms of a legal basis on either General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) Article XXIV or the Enabling Clause. The latter provision can be used...

Advanced economies have been witnessing a pronounced slowdown of productivity growth since the global financial crisis that is accompanied in recent years by a withdrawal from trade integration processes. We study the determinants of productivity slowdown over the past two decades in four...

Over the past three decades, the price of machinery and equipment fell dramatically relative to other prices in advanced and emerging market and developing economies. Using cross-country and sectoral data, we show that the decline in the relative price of tangible tradable capital goods provided...

In the modern world, most of the trade between countries is carried out within Global Value Chains (GVCs), which have become a strong driver of global economic growth. Also, not all countries are sufficiently penetrated into these chains and can benefit from integration there. Most developing...

The paper discusses similarities and differences between past EU binding internal liberalization "across the board" in the industrial sector and present so-called voluntary sectoral liberalization of member states of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC). While both approaches are...