What influences the adoption of transparency obligations in trade agreements, and what are its effects? This paper uses a new dataset on transparency provisions in over a hundred regional trade agreements (RTAs) to provide empirical evidence of the political economy determinants of international...

Over the past decade, an increasing number of economies have resorted to regional trade agreements (RTAs) as a means to further the market-opening and rule-making agenda. In this context, this paper addresses the question as to whether and how selected elements of RTAs could be used as...

Countries embarking on trade negotiations are not only seeking increased market access, but also, reduced market opacity. This study distils the most progressive practices for promoting regulatory transparency in over one hundred regional trade agreements (RTAs) concluded by OECD and large...

The proliferation of preferential trade agreements has posed challenges for the multilateral trading system. But regional trade agreements (RTAs) also allow countries to develop and strengthen trade disciplines beyond what is possible at the multilateral level. In some instances, RTAs explore...

Cutting trade costs, especially those stemming from non-tariff measures, is a growing priority for policy makers. One way to achieve this is for countries to improve their co-operation on regulatory matters. An avenue open to governments is to include provisions related to international...

Estimates for ad valorem tariff equivalents of services trade restrictions for cross-border trade in six services sectors are presented in this paper. These equivalents are found to be very big in several service sectors with estimates ranging as high as 2000% when trade flows are relatively...

This paper aims to provide policy makers with a broad overview of the issues that the digital transformation raises for trade with a view to informing how these might be reflected in trade policy design. It discusses how digitalisation has changed international trade and provides estimates of...