International organizations and the Theory of Clubs

This paper focuses on international organizations, especially those regulat-ing trade and exchange. It draws on the Theory of Clubs (Buchanan, 1965) and builds a model that aims to explain governments' optimal choices when joining international organizations. The results of the model show that governmental willingness to enlarge international organizations and to increase their degree of commitment are decreasing functions of both, the size of the organization, and the country's degree of commitment and of national heterogeneity. -- Theory of Clubs ; international economic organizations ; benefits and costs of the governments' choices