This paper provides practical techniques to policymakers for evaluating the potential economic effects of a Free Trade Agreement (FTA). To this end, the paper discusses how to apply three methods: (i) trade indicators, (ii) SMART (Software for Market Analysis and Restrictions on Trade) in WITS...

Regional economic integration is back in vogue following the "stumble" in the Doha Round in July 2008. Preferential trade agreements (PTAs) are driving this trend in Asia and the Pacific as well as in Central and South America, and the sheer volume of PTAs is striking. In the 1990s there were...

Using highly disaggregated customs-transaction-level data, we study the importer price effects of tariffs in the context of preferential trade agreements for South African imports of frozen bone-in chicken. We focus first on the firm-level impact of tariffs on import prices. Findings suggest no...

The paper examines the formation of free trade agreements (FTAs) as a network formation game. We consider a general n-country model in which countries trade differentiated industrial commodities as well as a numeraire good. Countries may be different in the size of the industrial good industry...

This study examines how the rules of origin (RoO) of a free trade agreement (FTA) affect firms' pricing strategies. A value-added criterion (VAC) of the RoO requires firms to add more than a certain level of values within an FTA when firms use inputs originating from outside the FTA. The VAC may...

This study explores the new roles of rules of origin (ROO) when multinational enterprises (MNEs) manipulate their transfer prices to avoid a high corporate tax. ROO of a free trade agreement (FTA) require exporters to identify the origin of exports to be eligible for a preferential tariff rate....

This paper reviews the most significant recent developments in the theory of trade agreements. The paper offers an integrated approach to evaluating trade agreements, and uses the approach to present results on preferential and multilateral trade agreements. The paper identifies also several...

Few policy issues in Brussels and Washington DC are met with such a compact unity across political boundaries as the idea of deepened transatlantic economic integration. Twenty years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the support for transatlantic economic co-operation remains strong. The...

The Republic of Korea (hereafter Korea) continues to promote an open-trade system via the conclusion of free trade agreements (FTAs), arguing that Korean enterprises will obtain considerable business opportunities under the FTAs the government has implemented. However, the FTAs that are...

In this paper, we analyzed key aspects of the changing economic relationship between the European Union (EU) and Asia, and explored the potential economic ramifications of deeper EU-Asian economic cooperation. We also investigated the possible costs to the EU of remaining "disengaged" from the...