This paper examines the welfare effects of the formation of a free-trade area (a set of countries that abolish tariffs among member countries but let individual member countries to set external tariffs). If a representative consumer has love-of-variety preferences, the welfare function exhibits...

This paper argues that the sign of external effects of coalition formation provides a useful organizing principle in examining economic coalitions. In many interesting economic games, coalition formation creates either negativee externalities or positive externalities for nonmembers. Examples of...

This paper examines the welfare effects of the formation of a free-trade area (a set of countries that abolish tariffs among member countries but let individual member countries to set external tariffs). If a representative consumer has love-of-variety preferences the welfare function exhibits...

We examine the endogenous formation of research coalitions with high spillovers among symmetric firms. Members of a research coalition set their R&D investments in order to maximise the aggregate profits of members of their coalition. The Exclusive membership rule supports a more "concentrated"...