The increasing uptake of environmental provisions in preferential trade agreements (PTAs) is well documented, but little is known about why countries prefer certain types of provisions over others. This contribution exploits a fine-grained data-set on environmental provisions in PTAs and...

It may appear all too obvious that the extent to which foreign direct investment (FDI) is attracted by bilateral investment treaties (BITs) and regional trade agreements (RTAs) depends on the strength of key investment provisions. Still, BITs and RTAs have typically been treated as black boxes...

The previous literature provides a highly ambiguous picture on the impact of trade and investment agreements on FDI. Most empirical studies ignore the actual content of BITs and RTAs, treating them as "black boxes", despite the diversity of investment provisions constituting the essence of these...