The proliferation of preferential trade agreements in Asia may result in a number of hub and spoke configures with Japan, China and ASEAN compete as regional hub of bilateral FTAs. Using a newly developed global CGE model with imperfect competition, increasing return to scale and heterogeneous firm, we explore the potential economic effects of alternative hub and spoke configurations in Asia. T...

concerns regarding the trans-pacific partnership (tpp) have raised awareness about the negative public health impacts of trade and investment agreements. in the past decade, we have learned much about the implications of trade agreements for public health: reduced equity in access to health services; increased flows of unhealthy commodities; limits on access to medicines; and constrained policy...

Do the World Trade Organization and the Generalized System of Preferences foster bilateral trade? World trade has grown exponentially during the last 60 years. Admittedly, it is not clear if this development can be assigned to international trade agreements like the World Trade Organization or the Generalized System of Preferences as previous empirical studies found contradicting results. In th...

We use detailed trade, tariff, and income data for countries involved in 91 trade agreements negotiated since 1980 to test for reciprocity in free trade agreements. The results offer strong evidence of reciprocity in North-North and South-South free trade agreements, but there is little empirical support for reciprocity in North-South trade agreements. In particular, after controlling for other...

Since the Pinochet dictatorship in the 1970s, Chile has carried out neoliberal reforms. Successive governments have promoted exports, reduced tariffs, welcomed foreign investment, and pursued bilateral and regional trade agreements, including the recent U.S.-Chile Free Trade Agreement. Unlike most countries in the region, these reforms have produced rapid growth. Real growth rates in the 1990s ...

the least developed and developing countries constitute two third of the members the world trade organizations (wto). these groups of countries have different views and concerns on international trade issues. as far as development is concerned, they have different needs and their economic system is often weak and fragile and therefore, they need extra protection. the wto agreements contain spec...

I n recent years, globalization has forced a deeper appreciation of the relationship between intellectual property (IP) law and global health. The threat of an emergent avian bird fl u pandemic led to calls for Roche to relax patent restrictions on oseltamivir, a drug with potential effi cacy against bird infl uenza [1,2]. In the context of the fall 2001 anthrax attacks, the US government faced...

This paper formulates an empirical model to estimate the impact of endogenous new 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 endogenous RTAs on intra-ind...