Regional integration is increasingly recognized as a key avenue for promoting economic growth and reducing poverty. Preferential trade agreements (PTAs) have become a central instrument of regional integration in all parts of the world. Beyond market access and the progressive elimination of...

The global financial crisis is stimulating a broad reassessment of economic integration policies in developed and developing countries alike. The crisis was associated with a great trade collapse, the sharpest in recorded history and the deepest since Second World War (Baldwin 2009). The trade...