The primary objective of most trade agreements is to restrain members' use of trade policies for protectionist purposes. But it would be pointless to restrict the application of border instruments without regulating the possible use of domestic policies for protectionist purpose. To this end,...

The purpose of this study is to present to readers with limited training in economics the perspective that most international trade economists bring to the study of trade agreements. It focuses on the main approach in the literature, which sees these agreements as means to address negative...

We study the politics of intergenerational redistribution in an overlapping generations model with short-lived governments. The successive governmentsþwho care about the welfare of the currently living generations and possibly about campaign contributionsþare unable to pre-commit the future...