The results highlight the conflicting interests of countries — to stabilize exchange rates or to keep the option of exchange rate depreciation in order to maintain competitiveness of domestic tradable producers. With deepening integration in East Asia, however, the desire for exchange...

This paper investigates the effect of regional borders on trade in Asia. The regional borders define the three regions of Asia : South, Southeast, and East Asia. Regional trade indicates the flows of trade within a region, whereas regional border trade means trade across regions. A gravity model...

This paper analyzes the dynamics of Colombian exports to the Venezuelan market, the characteristics of the firms that ship goods to this destination and the dependence of their revenues on sales to Venezuela. The results show that the Venezuelan market shipments affect the evolution, structure...

Bilateralism arises as a “second-best” option when countries seek benefits beyond those of regional approaches to free trade and those of unilateral liberalization. In spite of the regional initiatives for free trade in South Asia along with policy reforms in individual countries, Sri Lanka...

Using NAFTA as an illustrating example, I show that heterogeneity in the effects of free trade agreements (FTAs) both within and across agreements is not very well understood. Not only has NAFTA reduced trade frictions significantly more than other FTAs, but each NAFTA member country has enjoyed...

Using a novel common econometric specification, we examine the measurement of three important effects in international trade that historically have been addressed largely separately: the (partial) effects on trade of economic integration agreements, national borders, and bilateral distance....

This paper investigates empirically whether the ASEAN Free Trade Agreement had a building bloc or stumbling bloc effect on subsequent changes in MFN tariffs of four major ASEAN members. The method resembles the one recently used by Nuno Limão. We use tariff data to test whether MFN tariffs were...

We investigate the effect of economic integration agreements on the stability of international trade at the 4 digit SITC level. Using annual trade data for over 180 countries from 1962 to 2005 we examine how economic integration agreements affect the length of trade relationships, the volume at...

This paper demonstrates that the appropriate econometric technique of testing for the effect of regional integration on bilateral trade is to augment the standard gravity model with country specific dummies instead of regional integration dummies. Using data on bilateral trade between Tanzania...

Over the past decade, an increasing number of economies have resorted to regional trade agreements (RTAs) as a means to further the market-opening and rule-making agenda. In this context, this paper addresses the question as to whether and how selected elements of RTAs could be used as...