We estimate the effect of RTAs on bilateral exports by means of a gravity model analyzing its sensitivity to different specifications and methods. RTAs generate a sizable positive effect. However, shifting to country-pair and time-varying fixed effects systematically reduces coefficients....

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...

This paper argues that the formation of regional integration frameworks can be best understood as a dominant state’s attempt to create a preferred regional framework in which it can exercise exclusive influence. In this context, it is important to observe not only which countries are included...

East Asia is a region of great global significance, currently accounting for around 30% of the global economy by most measures, e.g. production, trade, investment and finance. It has also become increasingly integrated in various ways. Integration at the micro-level has steadily progressed since...

Emerging mega-integration blocs such as the Trans-Pacific Partnership and the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership are evolving outside of the World Trade Organization’s influence. Their most contested features are their investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) systems. This article...

During the last century there has been a huge reduction in trade costs at almost every spatial scale impulsed not only by technological advances applied to transport and communication systems, but also by the spread of regional trade agreements and other related schemes. This estringent fall has...

The paper aims to examine economic interdependence and balancing power politics, and their mixed implications for regional institution building in East Asia based on the concept of common security. By pointing out the gap between the violent conflict prediction and the stability and prosperity...

This paper constructs agreement specific instruments in order to estimate the effect of membership in a regional cooperation agreement (RCA) on institutional change. For a sample of 144 emerging and developing economies, the results show that membership in a RCA explains a significant part of...

This study on the economic integration of the Euro-Med region was conducted from December 2008 to September 2009 under contract with the European Commission (TRADE08/C2/C16). The study provides quantitative, qualitative and sectoral assessments of the impacts of the Euro- Mediterranean free...