This study attempts to empirically determine if the spaghetti bowl phenomenon (hereinafter referred to as the SBP) exists among the 21 member APEC trade bloc. The SBP phenomenon claims that the crisscrossing of multiple free trade agreements (FTAs) of a country with partner economies can lead to...

In the race for establishing trading architecture consistent with new landscape of the global economy, the US is ahead of the game by concluding the Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement with 11 countries. To make it reality, the ratification is essential. In the battle for ratification in the US,...

Modern economic partnership agreements like the TPP, TTIP, and RCEP address a wide range of areas of commercial regulation with varying levels of commitments. Estimates of their impacts vary widely, raising questions about the models and modelling protocols used to derive them. Issues of major...

The Trans-Pacific Partnership and Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership will impact on substantive market regulations in a wide a range of areas bearing on market access, both by establishing substantive new horizontal and sectoral standards and by establishing requirements regarding...

The literature on the impact of bilateral investment treaties (BITs) on foreign direct investment (FDI) has had difficulty establishing a robust effect of BITs on FDI flows. This conclusion extends to FDI chapters in free trade agreements (FTAs), which feature the same substantive content as...

We exploit a natural experiment to study the extent to which popular attitudes toward trade are driven by economic fundamentals. In 2007, Costa Rica put a free trade agreement (FTA) to a national referendum. With a single question on the ballot, 59% of Costa Rican adult citizens cast a vote on...

Many different approaches have developed for the evaluation of non-tariff measures (NTMs) and free trade agreements (FTAs). Moving on from models using simple dummy variables, today a range of databases can capture different aspects of NTMs and FTAs. Some assess the depth of FTAs by extracting...

Our paper shows that individual preferences for open-market policies are mainly shaped by trust in institutions and not economic self-interest. On the basis of the Eurobarometer, a comprehensive semiannual survey that monitors public opinion in EU Member States, we exploit data on attitudes...

In the race for establishing trading architecture consistent with new landscape of the global economy, the US is ahead of the game by concluding the Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement with 11 countries. To make it reality, the ratification is essential. In the battle for ratification in the US,...

While the pathway to the Free Trade Area of the Asia-Pacific (FTAAP) has been intensely discussed with a focus on its architecture, something has been missing: how to link trade and investment liberalization with inclusive growth of the APEC economies. The APEC economies have been increasingly...