The purpose of this document is to inform Bank staff and other interested parties about recent developments in integration and trade among the countries of the Western Hemisphere and between these and other countries and world regions.

This book assesses the impact and design of optimal strategies to implement existing agreements. It deals with issues such as removing the remaining barriers to trade, improving the institutional, regional, and global trade architecture, and promoting convergence and accumulation among the...

This paper maps out Rules of Origin (RoO) in regional trade agreements (RTAs) around the world, and observes that the restrictiveness and complexity of RoO are driven by factors specific to each RTA, including economy size and level of development.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the extent of liberalisation in RTAs in the Americas in comparison to agreements in other world regions, and to put forth policy recommendations for multilateralising the regional RTAs. While primarily focusing on market access in goods-and tariff...

Regional integration initiatives have long been part of the world economic landscape. In Latin America, integration flourished in the early post-war era but then lost momentum until the 1990s, when there was a new wave of initiatives ranging from free trade areas to customs unions. This Report...

Regional integration initiatives have long been part of the world economic landscape. In Latin America, integration flourished in the early post-war era but then lost momentum until the 1990s, when there was a new wave of initiatives ranging from free trade areas to customs unions. This Report...

This book assesses the impact and design of optimal strategies to implement existing agreements. It deals with issues such as removing the remaining barriers to trade, improving the institutional, regional, and global trade architecture, and promoting convergence and accumulation among the...

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...

This document is an input to the IDB country strategy with Belize for the period 2008-2012. This note assesses Belize's trade performance in the past several years, and puts forth policy recommendations for Belize to foster its export projection and competitiveness in global markets. The main...

When countries' economies were relatively closed, tax systems reflected purely and exclusively national characteristics. Policymakers worried about the capacity of their tax systems to generate needed revenue, about the ability of their tax administrations to administer the national taxes, and...