Rules of origin are a crucial market access instrument in the rapidly proliferating network of preferential trade agreements (PTAs) around the world. In this volume, Estevadeordal and Suominen reveal the protectionist impulses behind rules of origin, examine their impacts on international trade...

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...

This document summarizes the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) experience as one of the main sources of multilateral development financing in Latin America and the Caribbean. From 2000 to 2005, total financing for economic, social and institutional development projects amounted to US$38.7...

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...

These two volumes survey the most important scholarly writings in economics and political science that explain the drivers and constraints to freer world trade.

Trade integration agreements and other international cooperation agreements have proliferated in recent years around the world. Rather than being spurred by exogenous forces alone, the two phenomena are likely to be both path-dependent and endogenous to one another. However, the theoretical and...

The Americas have been a key driver of regional trade agreements (RTAs) since the 1990s. This study considers the effect of these agreements on trade liberalization, and the lessons that this offers for other parts of the world, notably Asia. It finds broad geographical coverage of RTAs in the...

The Americas have been a key driver of regional trade agreements (RTAs) since the 1990s. This study considers the effect of these agreements on trade liberalization, and the lessons that this offers for other parts of the world, notably Asia. It finds broad geographical coverage of RTAs in the...