Recent regional initiatives have been addressed from a Vinerian perspective of trade creation and trade diversion. This is true both of policy-oriented economists, who tend to be critical of the initiatives, and of theorists, who have added dynamic and game-theoretic elements to the Vinerian...

The present paper aims to disseminate how liberalisation processes were conducted around the globe and especially in Europe since the XIXth century up to date. The research objective is to review the liberalisation of trade dynamics and create an image of the architecture of the most important...

We study how a preferential trade agreement (PTA) affects international sourcing decisions, aggregate productivity and welfare under incomplete contracting and endogenous matching. Contract incompleteness implies underinvestment. That inefficiency is mitigated by a PTA, because the agreement...

The well-known question whether regional trade agreements (RTAs) and the multilateral trading system (MTS) are strangers, friends, or foes (Bhagwati and Panagariya, 1996) has gained new importance with the widespread proliferation of RTAs in recent years. Based on an extensive data set which...

This paper analyzes the GATT negotiations during the Uruguay Round and shows that France was induced to accept a more free trade oriented package due to her integration into the European community. The importance of the European economic and diplomatic relationships led France to accept a GATT...

We study, theoretically and empirically, how countries choose intra-bloc tariffs and preferential margins when they form Preferential Trade Agreements (PTAs). Our model indicates that countries should set systematically lower preferential margins when the bloc takes the form of a free trade area...

We study the welfare impact of rules of origin in free trade agreements where final-good producers source customized inputs from suppliers within the trading bloc. We employ a property-rights framework that features hold-up problems in suppliers' decisions to invest, and where underinvestment is...

Recent regional initiatives have been addressed from a Vinerian perspective of regional integration as a combination of trade creation and trade diversion. This is true both of policy-oriented economists, who tend to be critical of the initiatives, and of theorists, who have added dynamic and...