Preferential trade agreements (PTAs) are characterized by liberalization with respect to only a few partners and thus they can potentially clash with, and retard multilateral trade liberalization (MTL). Yet there is almost no systematic evidence on whether the numerous existing PTAs actually...

This paper estimates the impact of macroeconomic fluctuations on import protection policies over 1988:Q1–2010:Q4 for five industrialized economies — the United States, European Union, Australia, Canada and South Korea. We find evidence of a strong countercyclical trade policy response in the...