Regulatory Cooperation in Mega-Regional Trade Agreements

Mega‐regional trade Agreements: Costly distractions for developing countries?

Regional Trade Agreements: Effects on Trade

positive or negative effects on trade depending on their design and implementation. Analysis in this chapter confirms that gains from a preferential trade agreement cannot be taken for granted; moreover, even in agreements with positive impacts on average incomes, not all members are assured of increases. The interesting policy question then is not whether RTAs are categorically good or bad, bu...

Regional Trade Agreements: a comparison

The negotiation and construction of a Regional Trade Agreement (RTA) bears the elements of its future success. The agreement identifies the relative strength of the countries involved and the long-term internal functioning of the agreement. A comparison between the NAFTA and Mercosur RTAs highlights this concept. NAFTA appears to indicate the clear range of possibilities to the US, Canada and M...

Regional Trade Agreements in a Multilateral Trade Regime: An Overview

One of the most striking development in the world trading system since the mid 1990s is a surge in Regional Trade Agreements (RTAs). From about 50 till 1990, the number of RTAs notified to the World Trade Organization (WTO) has crossed 250 in 2003 and estimates indicate that over 300 RTAs will be in effect by 2007. Initially WTO encouraged the growth of RTAs because it believed that regional in...

The trade structure effects of endogenous regional trade agreements

This paper formulates an empirical model to estimate the impact of endogenous new regional trade agreement (RTA) membership on trade structure. The likelihood of new RTA membership is influenced by economic fundamentals such as country size, factor endowments, and trade and investment costs. In a sample of country-pairs covering mainly the OECD economies we find a particularly strong effect of ...