Regional Trade Agreements

This paper reviews the theoretical and empirical literature on regionalism. The formation of regional trade agreements has been, by far, the most popular form of reciprocal trade liberalization in the past 15 years. The discriminatory character of these agreements has raised three main concerns: tha...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Freund, Caroline
Other Authors: Ornelas, Emanuel
Format: eBook
Language:English
Published: Washington, D.C The World Bank 2010
Online Access:
Collection: World Bank E-Library Archive - Collection details see MPG.ReNa
LEADER 01737nmm a2200229 u 4500
001 EB002099732
003 EBX01000000000000001239822
005 00000000000000.0
007 cr|||||||||||||||||||||
008 221013 ||| eng
100 1 |a Freund, Caroline 
245 0 0 |a Regional Trade Agreements  |h Elektronische Ressource  |c Freund, Caroline 
260 |a Washington, D.C  |b The World Bank  |c 2010 
300 |a 61 p 
700 1 |a Freund, Caroline 
700 1 |a Ornelas, Emanuel 
041 0 7 |a eng  |2 ISO 639-2 
989 |b WOBA  |a World Bank E-Library Archive 
028 5 0 |a 10.1596/1813-9450-5314 
856 4 0 |u http://elibrary.worldbank.org/doi/book/10.1596/1813-9450-5314  |x Verlag  |3 Volltext 
082 0 |a 330 
520 |a This paper reviews the theoretical and empirical literature on regionalism. The formation of regional trade agreements has been, by far, the most popular form of reciprocal trade liberalization in the past 15 years. The discriminatory character of these agreements has raised three main concerns: that trade diversion would be rampant, because special interest groups would induce governments to form the most distortionary agreements; that broader external trade liberalization would stall or reverse; and that multilateralism could be undermined. Theoretically, all of these concerns are legitimate, although there are also several theoretical arguments that oppose them. Empirically, neither widespread trade diversion nor stalled external liberalization has materialized, while the undermining of multilateralism has not been properly tested. There are also several aspects of regionalism that have received too little attention from researchers, but which are central to understanding its causes and consequences