This paper estimates the impact of the ASEAN-China Free Trade Agreement on the trade flows between China and the ASEAN countries. A gravity model with FTA specification is used to estimate the treatment effect of ACFTA. Since there are other unobserved variables that correlate with both the trade flows between China–ASEAN and the decision to form ACFTA, a cross-sectional OLS regression runs the...

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...

Mainstream geographical economics propagates the free trade doctrine, presenting capitalism as entailing, but capable of overcoming, uneven geographical development. Geographers have failed to engage with the international trade theories that rationalize this, or develop alternatives. Beginning with the entanglements through which trade happens, I examine how theories rationalizing the free tra...

An Empirical Analysis of Trade-Related Redistribution and the Political Viability of Free Trade Even if free trade creates net welfare gains for a country as a whole, the associated distributional implications can undermine the political viability of free trade. We show that trade-related redistribution increases the political viability of free trade in the US. We do so by assessing the causal ...

E conomic integration among countries has continued to deepen over the past decade. This is especially visible at the regional level, with the escalation of Regional Integration Agreements (RIAs) ranging from Free Trade Areas (FTAs) to Customs Unions (CUs). Nowadays, many developing countries have entered a new regional integration agreement with developed and developing countries. S...