With free trade areas (FTAs) under negotiation between Japan and the ASEAN Free Trade Area (AFTA) members and between the Republic of Korea and AFTA members, preferential market access will become more important in Asian regionalism. Protectionist pressures will likely increase through rules of...

Building on earlier work by Estevadeordal, we construct a synthetic index (R-index) intending to capture the restrictiveness of rules of origin (PSRO) in preferential trading agreements. The R-index is applied to NAFTA and the Single List of the EU's PANEURO system covering all of the EU's...