Why are trade agreements regional? I address this question in a model of oligopoly featuring product variety. Tariffs have the effect of manipulating a country's terms of trade and shifting profits towards the domestic market at the expense of foreign trade partners. Countries endogenously form...

Trade policy in Asia has switched from non-discriminatory unilateral liberalisation, reinforced by GATT/ WTO commitments, to discriminatory FTAs. The paper surveys the FTA activity of the major regional players: China, India, the ASEAN countries, Japan and South Korea. It concludes that emerging...

The proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is a free trade agreement among 12 Pacific Rim countries whose joint gross domestic products (GDPs) account for 36 percent of world GDP and whose mutual trade accounts for approximately 24 percent of world trade. As for most proposed free trade...

[The Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) presents strong potential to mold regional trade and investment patterns well into the future and to influence the direction of global economic cooperation at a challenging time. This paper provides detailed estimates on the effects of the...

The political economy of international trade decision-making within the United States is complex and ever-changing. The debates over the merits of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), and the associated efforts of the Obama Administration to obtain Trade Promotion Authority (TPA), highlight...

We study, theoretically and empirically, how countries choose intra-bloc tariffs and preferential margins when they form Preferential Trade Agreements (PTAs). Our model indicates that countries should set systematically lower preferential margins when the bloc takes the form of a free trade area...

Madagascar plans to start phasing out its customs tariffs on imports from the Southern African Development Community in 2007. This paper uses a CGE model to evaluate the impact of the SADC FTA on Madagascar economy. The results suggest that the SADC FTA would only have a limited impact on...

After China launched the Belt and Road Initiative in 2013, the Chinese government has invested over 1200 infrastructure projects in countries along the Belt and Road, and nearly 10% of the projects have failed or been delayed. China has also concluded free trade agreements with many countries...