This paper analyses the choices between regionalism and multilateralism, and the impact of WTO membership on the five Central Asian countries. The two main sections analyse (1) why the large number of regional trade agreements which the Central Asian countries have signed have had little...

This paper reviews the evolution of thinking about regional trade agreements (RTAs) and the policy developments reflected in three waves of RTAs during the last half century. It rejects claims, based on number of RTAs notified to the WTO, that RTAs are today more prolific than ever. Desirable...

Kazakhstan’s economy has been driven by an oilboom since the discovery of large new oilfields coincided with the upturn of world oil prices after 1998. This paper uses national household expenditure survey data to examine whether Kazakhstan’s experience supports a curse or a blessing...

Capital account liberalization and exchange rate regime choice, what scope for flexibility in Tunisia? The adoption by Tunisia of structural reforms of its economy in a context of gradual opening since 1986, had allowed the instauration in January 1993 of the convertibility of its current...

The recent debates over discriminatory versus uniform-price auctions in the UK and elsewhere have revealed an incomplete understanding of the limitations of some popular auction models when applied to real-world electricity markets. This has led certain regulatory authorities to prefer...

In a Bayesian game players play an unknown game. Before the game starts some players may receive a signal regarding the specific game actually played. Typically, information structures that determine different signals, induce different equilibrium payoffs.In zero-sum games the equilibrium payoff...

This paper characterizes interim efficient mechanisms for public good production and cost allocation in a two-type environment with risk neutral, quasi-linear preferences and fixed size projects, where the distribution of the private good, as well as the public goods decision, affects social...

We study the issue of project choice when a risk-averse agent must choose whether to invest in two projects of the same type (focus) or of different types (diversification). Projects of the same type are subject to common type-specific shocks. Hence focusing is more risky within each period, but...

We show that, in repeated common interest games without discounting, strong `perturbation implies efficiency' results require that the perturbations must include strategies which are `draconian' in the sense that they are prepared to punish to the maximum extent possible. Moreover, there is a...

This paper examines the question of the extent to which it is true that any equilibrium that is quasi-perfect in any extensive form game having a given normal form is necessarily proper. If one fixes not only the equilibrium in question but also a a sequence of completely mixed strategies...