This paper documents the novel fact that Regional Trade Agreements (RTA) decrease bilateral trade imbalances as measured by conventional measure of the net export share in gross trade. While on average an RTA decreases bilateral trade imbalance by 7%, greater trade integration through a deeper...

Europe and Asia followed very different paths to economic integration after 1945. By 2000, an economic union with free movement of goods and factors of production and a common currency linked much of Europe. Meanwhile, effective economic integration agreements were absent from Asia, although...

Economic integration, encompassing the removal or reduction of trade barriers and the coordination of monetary and fiscal policies, plays a pivotal role in promoting cooperation among nations. This systematic literature review examines the role of global value chains (GVCs) in promoting economic...

Regional integration in South Asia remains a distant priority for SAARC countries. In the area of services, this region offers great potential. This paper aims to examine the opportunities that exist in services and analyses the constraints that impede regional integration in services in South...

The objective of this research is to determine the constraints to the export supply in ECOWAS countries, mainly in their intra-regional trade. The analysis of international data by descriptive statistics on the one hand and on the other hand by an econometric technique using the gravity model...

The European Union (EU) is one of the most successful integration arrangements in the world. However, the disintegration in Europe through Brexit is puzzling. This article aims to clarify this dilemma by addressing the following questions: Was the former French President, de Gaulle, right that...

The proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is a free trade agreement among 12 Pacific Rim countries whose joint gross domestic products (GDPs) account for 36 percent of world GDP and whose mutual trade accounts for approximately 24 percent of world trade. As for most proposed free trade...

Bilateral and regional cooperation initiatives in Asia have been growing in importance over the last five years. These accords span the real and financial sectors; rather than following the more typical pattern of “trade first, money later”, recent policy initiatives involve the simultaneous...

Despite the rapid internationalization of the global securities market, regulatory disharmony has been a persistent obstacle to multi-jurisdictional offerings. However, the increased demand for comparable information in the analysis of investment risk necessary to the allocation of assets has...

Intra South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) trade isn’t of commendable value as compared to that of EU or ASEAN. The question arises, does the trend imply failure of SAARC in economic terms or the root failure lies outside the rational scope of trade? Therefore, an attempt...