Intra-bloc tariffs and preferential margins in trade agreements

Preferential Trade Agreements

Intra-industry Trade and Trade Liberalization: Evidence from Preferential Tariffs Data∗

Does exchanging similar products within the same industry facilitate trade liberalization? While decades of theoretical research identified forceful political and economic reasons for open trade in the presence of high intra-industry trade, there exists surprisingly little empirical evidence supporting the claim. We contend that the lack of evidence is attributable to the common practice of cou...

Tariff Adjustments in Preferential Trade Agreements

In this paper we examine how preferential trade liberalization affects the terms of trade, external tariffs and welfare of the integrating countries and the rest of the world. Our analysis is based on a three-country, three-good, general equilibrium model with symmetric customs union (CU) members. The model generalizes previous work by considering more general consumer preferences and productio...

Small Countries and Preferential Trade Agreements

This paper examines the welfare implications of preferential trade agreements (PTAs) from the perspective of small countries in the context of a multi-country, general equilibrium model. We calibrate our model to represent one relatively small country and two symmetric big countries. We consider two cases. In one case, the small country is an “innocent bystander,” that is, it is left out of a P...

Preferential Trade Agreements in Asia and the Pacific 157 Preferential Trade Agreements in Asia and the Pacific

Global multilateral trading arrangements offer the best prospect for reducing barriers to trade and achieving the greatest gains from trade liberalization. Preferential trade agreements (PTAs) are a second-best means of achieving trade liberalization in a context where multilateral negotiations proceed slowly. There is considerable variation in the efforts undertaken by PTAs in different parts ...