Based on the first comprehensive mapping of telecommunications provisions in regional trade agreements (RTAs), this paper shows that RTAs have evolved and expanded significantly over years. While some focus information communications technologies (ICT) infrastructure, policy investment, other address services as well standards conformity assessment procedures ICT equipment. The most detailed ar...

While there is a large literature on the economic theory of international standards, and their presumed effects, we know much less about how international standards work in practice. This paper reviews the body of empirical work that has investigated the specific question: How international standards impact on international trade? Do they help or hinder trade? The work reviewed ranges from econ...

This paper indicates that the consequences of regional trade agreements for the world trade system may be deceiving—an arrangement’s apparent virtue may constitute the source of its drawback. In a model where governments have political, as well as economic, motivations, I show that a free trade area induces its members to reduce protection against the non-members, and to do so sufficiently deep...

While it is widely acknowledged that international standards facilitate trade much less is known about certification requirements and mutually recognition of certification results. In our paper, we examine the impact of ISO 9000 certifications and the multilateral recognition arrangement for international acceptance of ISO 9000 certificates of the International Accreditation Forum (IAF-MLA) on ...

In this paper we study the consequences of regional free trade agreements (FTAs) for global free trade. In the context of a three-country, two-good general equilibrium trade model, we derive stable Nash equilibria of two coalition formation games of trade liberalization: One in which FTAs are ruled out, and another in which countries have the option to form FTAs. Our analysis reveals that there...