Over 200 bilateral and regional trade agreements are currently in force, yet their impact remains a topic of debate. We analyse effects of 27 agreements that are of particular importance for Australia on the value of merchandise trade flows using data from 1970 up to the global financial crisis...

This paper reviews the theoretical and empirical literature on regionalism. The formation of regional trade agreements has been, by far, the most popular form of reciprocal trade liberalization in the past 15 years. The discriminatory character of these agreements has raised three main concerns:...

We develop a novel two-stage methodology that allows us to study the empirical determinants of the ex post effects of past free trade agreements (FTAs) as well as obtain ex ante predictions for the effects of future FTAs. We first identify 908 unique estimates of the effects of FTAs on different...

The mega regional trade agreements – the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), and the Trade in Services Agreement (TISA) – will impact on non-parties through a combination of trade...

The number of operative regional trading agreements (RTAs) has been rising steadily. This paper reviews the history of regionalism, and argues that the increasing focus of RTAs on nontariff measures and non-trade issues make the creation of coalitions of countries to pursue specific rather than...

The Trans-Pacific Partnership includes a chapter on regulatory coherence and measures to reduce trade costs arising from divergent standards. We review the substantive content of the TPP's measures in light of existing processes in international organizations addressing good regulatory...

The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (T-TIP) are both slated to contain investor protections similar to those contained in the North Atlantic Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). These measures, as included in NAFTA, allowed businesses to seek...

The last 25 years have witnessed a rapid increase in regional trade agreements (RTAs). Although RTAs generally aim at lowering tariff and non-tariff trade barriers, an increasing number of trade agreements extend their scope to cover specific policy areas such as environmental protection and...