To help predict whether the proliferation of free trade agreements (FTAs) continues until global free trade is effectively attained, this paper investigates dynamic paths of FTAs, generated by numerical simulations of a model of an FTA network formation game with many countries. The...

International cooperation in trade policies under the auspices of the WTO makes countries "feel" more obliged to uphold agreements. The paper emphasizes the role of the WTO to give moral support: countries incur "psychological costs" when they renege on the agreements that are formally signed...

This paper derives Abreu's stick-and-carrot strategy optimal penal codes (1986) in a partial equilibrium model that has been widely used to examine trade liberalization. Unless the asymmetry between countries is significant, the optimal penal codes take a simple form. It is also shown that the...

This paper shows nonemptiness of the core of a customs union game with a status quo equilibrium with tariffs by employing an appropriate notion of the core as in <link rid="b9">Kowalczyk and Sjöström (1994</link>, <i>Economica</i>). Specifically, we find that if customs unions may have no effects on nonmember countries as...