As substantive economic and social phenomena, international trade and investment are inextricably linked. Yet like twins separated at birth, for decades they have been regulated by discrete international legal systems. Despite the historic parting of their respective legal systems, international...

The Productivity Commission was asked to examine the effects of bilateral and regional trade agreements, including on trade and investment barriers, regional integration and Australia's economy generally. The Commission concluded the benefits of these agreements have been oversold and the...

This paper explores how far free trade agreements (FTAs) have strengthened or weakened global governance of the trading system. We open with an analysis of the altered political and economic context within which countries have come, in recent years, to assign a new importance to regional and...

International investment and related disputes are on the rise. With national courts generally unavailable and difficulties resolving disputes through diplomacy, investment treaties give investors a right to seek redress and arbitrate directly with states. The costs of these investment treaty...

The growth in the trade share of output is one of the most important features of the world economy since World War II. The growth is generally thought to have been generated by falling tariff barriers worldwide. This thinking, however, does not square with standard static and dynamic...

The WTO Agreement on Government Procurement (GPA) is a plurilateral Agreement, meaning that it comprises only a subset of the full Membership of the WTO. Currently, a number of WTO Members that are not Parties to the Agreement either are actively seeking accession to it, have commitments to...

This article examines the international regime that governs cultural commodities by providing an up-to-date stocktaking in the field. In doing so, this paper focuses on the music industry, both as the general backdrop and as a context in which to observe the evolution of the current regulatory...

Imagine this: a mere century ago, the purchasing power of an average American was one-tenth of what it is today. But what will it take to sustain that growth through the next century? And what can be said about economic growth to aspiring nations seeking higher standards of living for their...

This paper assesses the potential impact of the ongoing phenomenon of services offshoring (frequently referred to as outsourcing, in the media) by analyzing the occupational structure of the US labor market. It develops a list of occupational attributes of offshoreability, points out the...

Dick Sabot, an active member of CGD's founding Board of Directors, was finishing this paper when he died suddenly on July 6 of 2005. The paper highlights the risks to developing countries posed by the growing U.S. external deficit and describes three possible scenarios. In the first, the US...