Regional trade agreements (RTAs) are increasingly portrayed as a threat to the free global exchange of goods and services. They involve an ever-growing share of world trade. The proportion of world trade covered by such accords is expected to grow from 43% today to 55% in 2005, if all regional...

Few policy issues in Brussels and Washington DC are met with such a compact unity across political boundaries as the idea of deepened transatlantic economic integration. Twenty years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the support for transatlantic economic co-operation remains strong. The...

Liberalization and regulatory reform of telecom markets has emerged as a high profile policy issue. This paper analyzes how the multilateral system under the World Trade Organization can help developing countries in promoting their own information infrastructures. We focus on a specific ?regime?...

This paper analyses the role of the European Union in promoting liberalisation among its member states and in crafting the multilateral regime for telecommunications services. It begins by analysing the origins of the EU regime, describing its contours and assessing its implementation. It then...

This paper discusses the nature, importance, and measurement of non-tariff barriers (NTBs) in services trade with particular reference to telecommunications services. It is shown that although more effectively addressed for the telecom sector at the multilateral level than for other service...