This article analyzes European Union-China trade relations in the context of the current negotiations for a new comprehensive framework agreement between the European Union (EU) and the People’s Republic of China. China is a strong economic power with increasingly sophisticated production in...

While the WTO process of multilateral trade liberalization encounters increasing resistance, in part because the most difficult issues have finally risen to the top of the agenda, market-based forces are contributing to international economic integration. One of the most potent are cross-border...

After 26 years of trading under the North American Free Trade agreement (NAFTA), Mexico and its North American partners enter a new phase with the entry into force of United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) on 1 July 2020. This note quantifies the potential impact of the agreement on...

The Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement (CUSMA), as amended by the Protocol of Amendment signed December 10, 2019, represents a major overhaul of the now-dated 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). However, it is unusual in that it has little traditional tariff liberalization,...

This Research Report assesses the likely impact of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) on the British Columbia economy from the vantage point of what is known as the negotiations enter the end phase of negotiations in the Fall of 2014. The assessment is based on a two-step process. First, the...

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...

In this chapter, I review the literature on governments’ motivations for negotiating and joining international trade agreements. I discuss both normative explanations for trade agreements and explanations based on political-economy concerns. Most of the chapter focuses on the purpose of...

Global institutions are understood as one of the best means of achieving inter-state cooperation. Yet this perspective omits the effects of institutional creation on non-members. We know that exclusion from trade agreements affects countries' economic cooperation. I show here that exclusion also...

The paper provides a detailed analysis of the current U.S. - Korea free trade agreement (FTA) negotiations. The currently negotiated U.S. - Korean FTA may offer a legal framework for economic integration between the United States and Korea in the sense that the FTA attempts to bring Korea's...