The proliferation of free trade agreements around the world has accentuated the role of preferential rules of origin (RoO) in global companies¿ sourcing and investment decisions. However, there are few theoretical and practically no empirical analyses on the effects of RoO on foreign direct...

Rules of origin (RoO) are a central topic both in the Inter-Regional Association Agreement negotiations between the European Union (EU) and the Southern Common Market (Mercosur), and in the 34-country negotiations of the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA). The purpose of this paper is to...

The centrifugal forces of economic globalization in the 1990's ran parallel with centripetal forces of regionalization. While seemingly pulling in opposite directions, the two forces reflected complementary dimensions of dynamic capitalist market development. The completion of the Uruguay Round...

There is a growing interest related to the theoretical analysis of Free Trade Agreements (FTAs). Nevertheless, there has been as yet very little empirical research on the topic, in particular, on the negotiating dynamics of these types of agreements. This paper attempts to make a contribution in...

Las fuerzas centrífugas de la globalización económica en los años noventa circularon paralelas con las centrípetas de la regionalización. Aunque aparentemente parecían dirigirse en direcciones opuestas, las dos fuerzas reflejaban dimensiones complementarias del dinámico desarrollo del...

This paper takes seriously the recent claim made by Ethier [1998] that the "New Regionalism" reflects the success of the multilateral trading system, not its failure. In fact, the New Regionalism represents a qualitative departure of the old regionalism in several respects, in particular, its...

The Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) process was launched during the Miami Summit of Heads of State in December 1994. It was the centerpiece of a broader hemispheric initiative of political and socio-economic cooperation among 34 countries of the Americas with the objective to negotiate a...

The European Union (EU) and MERCOSUR are the largest and most influential regions, both by population and in terms of size of the economy, of their respective continents. The renewed priority given to biregional cooperation launched by the Inter-Regional Framework Agreement signed in 1995 is...

The objective of this study is to analyze the interaction between trade and non-trade cooperation in some of the today's major regional initiatives, particularly those between developing and industrialized countries. The study suggests a framework to explore what the paper calls a "trade and...