The free market reforms adopted by Mexico in the wake of the debt crisis of the 1980s and in connection with the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) have jeopardized the physical and cultural survival of Mexico’s indigenous peoples, increased migration to the United States, threatened...

The most important aspect of American federalism embodied in the Constitution is the constitutional facilitation of a national free trade zone known as the United States wherein each independent unit is disabled from erecting barriers to trade under what is popularly termed the Interstate...

Established in 1995, the World Trade Organization (WTO) was the culmination of half a century of global trade liberalization achieved under the auspices of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). Subsequent agreements to achieve further liberalization — and to establish rules for...

All countries would agree to immediate global free trade if countries were compensated for any terms-of-trade losses with transfers from countries whose terms-of-trade improve, and if customs unions were required to have no effects on non-member countries. Global free trade with transfers is in...

While the renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement has received far more attention, a lesser-known U.S. trade deal has also been reworked. In April of 2017, President Trump proclaimed his displeasure with the Korea-U.S. Free Trade Agreement (commonly referred to as “KORUS”),...

Trade promotes economic growth, alleviates poverty and helps countries reach their development goals. However, developing countries – in particular the least developed – face difficulties in making trade happen and turning trade into economic growth. The Aid for Trade Initiative – launched...

This paper examines the impact of trade on employment, wages, and other outcomes across countries and explores the conditions and policies that help spread the gains from trade more evenly throughout the population. We exploit a large global firm-level dataset to examine the impact of import...

We calculate welfare gains of trade liberalization in the Central and East European transition economies, following the approach of Romer (1994), who emphasized that proper modeling of the impact of trade restrictions on the number of available product varieties is crucial to quantifying the...

Why do we observe proliferation of bilateral free trade agreements (FTAs) between certain types of countries instead of having progress in attaining global free trade through a multilateral FTA? We answer this question by exploring the enforceability of different types of FTAs through comparing...

Economists tend to exalt the virtues of free international trade, while politicians are more skeptical. This paper suggests that this is the case because politicians mainly worry about the income distribution effects of trade liberalization, while economists focus on efficiency. Using textbook...