This article discusses whether the current proliferation of preferential trade agreements - the so-called competitive liberalization - encourages evolution toward multilateral free trade. It argues that countries pursuing preferential trade initiatives are in pursuit of the economic rents...

The global economic effects of eliminating certain significant categories of non-tariff measures (NTMs) are estimated in a CGE context. As a first step, a database of institutional information identifying alleged instances of NTMs for particular products and countries is constructed based on...

In a sequential Computable General Equilibrium analysis, we investigate the likely effects of the EU-South Africa Free Trade agreement (FTA), with a special emphasis on South Africa's growth prospects. We find that the FTA increases South African output and welfare. We note, however, that the...

The paper studies the effects of regional integration on the incentives of members and non-members to undertake multilateral trade liberalization. Using a three-country political economy model with imperfect competition, it shows how regionalism can undermine support for multilateralism....