Download or read book Regional Trade Agreements and the Multilateral Trading System written by Rohini Acharya and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2016-09-22 with total page 753 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume contains a collection of studies examining trade-related issues negotiated in regional trade agreements (RTAs) and how RTAs are related to the WTO's rules. While previous work has focused on subsets of RTAs, these studies are based on what is probably the largest dataset used to date, and highlight key issues that have been negotiated in all RTAs notified to the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) and the World Trade Organization (WTO). New rules within RTAs are compared to rules agreed upon by WTO members. The extent of their divergences and the potential implications for parties to RTAs, as well as for WTO members that are not parties to RTAs, are examined. This volume makes an important contribution to the current debate on the role of the WTO in regulating international trade and how WTO rules relate to new rules being developed by RTAs.
Download or read book Termites in the Trading System written by Jagdish Bhagwati and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2008-07-14 with total page 160 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Jagdish Bhagwati, the internationally renowned economist who uniquely combines a reputation as the leading scholar of international trade with a substantial presence in public policy on the important issues of the day, shines here a critical light on Preferential Trade Agreements, revealing how the rapid spread of PTAs endangers the world trading system. Numbering by now well over 300, and rapidly increasing, these preferential trade agreements, many taking the form of Free Trade Agreements, have re-created the unhappy situation of the 1930s, when world trade was undermined by discriminatory practices. Whereas this was the result of protectionism in those days, ironically it is a result of misdirected pursuit of free trade via PTAs today. The world trading system is at risk again, the author argues, and the danger is palpable. Writing with his customary wit, panache and elegance, Bhagwati documents the growth of these PTAs, the reasons for their proliferation, and their deplorable consequences which include the near-destruction of the non-discrimination which was at the heart of the postwar trade architecture and its replacement by what he has called the spaghetti bowl of a maze of preferences. Bhagwati also documents how PTAs have undermined the prospects for multilateral freeing of trade, serving as stumbling blocks, instead of building blocks, for the objective of reaching multilateral free trade. In short, Bhagwati cogently demonstrates why PTAs are Termites in the Trading System.
Download or read book Developing Countries And The Multilateral Trading System written by T. N. Srinivasan and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2019-03-13 with total page 137 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book provides a historical perspective of the Uruguay Round agreement and focuses on the interaction between the developed and developing countries on matters relating to the global trading system and its disciplines since the founding of General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade.
Download or read book The Multilateral Trading System and Preferential Trade Agreements written by Heribert Dieter and published by . This book was released on 2011 with total page 18 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Reciprocity Non discrimination and Preferential Agreements in the Multilateral Trading System written by Kyle Bagwell and published by . This book was released on 1997 with total page 64 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: And non-discrimination, the two principles that are the pillars of the multi- lateral trading system as embodied in GATT and its successor, the WTO. We show that GATT's principle of reciprocity serves to neutralize the world-price effects of a country's trade policy decisions, and hence can deliver efficient trade-policy outcomes for its member governments provided that the externa- lities associated with trade intervention travel through world prices. We then establish that externalities indeed travel in this way if and only if tariffs also conform to the principle of non-discrimination (MFN). In this way, the principles of reciprocity and non-discrimination can work together to deliver efficient outcomes for the multilateral trading system. We also consider within our framework the implications of preferential agreements for the multilateral trading system. The introduction of free trade agreements com- plicates the way in which externalities are transmitted across countries, and in this environment the principle of reciprocity can not longer deliver efficient multilateral outcomes for its member governments. We do find a limited place for customs unions in the multilateral trading system, provided that the member countries of the union have similar political preferences. As these conditions are quite stringent, we offer little support for the hypothesis that the principle of reciprocity can deliver an efficient multi- lateral trade agreement in the presence of preferential agreements. Instead, our results offer support for the view that preferential agreements pose a threat to the existing multilateral system.
Download or read book From Gatt to the WTO The Multilateral Trading System written by World Trade Organization and published by Kluwer Law International B.V.. This book was released on 2000-04-13 with total page 200 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Om det nuværende og fremtidige verdenshandelsystem
Download or read book Multilateralizing Regionalism written by Richard Baldwin and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2009-02-19 with total page 743 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Regional trade agreements (RTAs) have proliferated around the world in the past two decades, and now nearly all members of the WTO are party to at least one. Besides tariffs and rules of origin regulating trade in goods, many RTAs now include provisions on services, investments, technical barriers to trade and competition rules, as well as a host of issues not directly related to trade. The geographic reach of RTAs is expanding, with transcontinental agreements spreading forcefully alongside intra-regional agreements. 'Multilateralizing Regionalism' was the title of a major conference held from 10–12 September 2007 at the WTO in Geneva. Brought together in this publication, the conference papers achieve two things. First, they marshall detailed, new empirical work on the nature of the 'Spaghetti Bowl' and the problems it poses for the multilateral trade system. Second, they contribute fresh and creative thinking on how to 'tame the tangle' of regional trade agreements.
Download or read book Regionalism and the Multilateral Trading System written by OECD and published by OECD Publishing. This book was released on 2003-07-09 with total page 166 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Compares rule-making provisions in regional trade agreements with those of the WTO in ten specific areas: services, labour mobility, investment, competition policy, trade facilitation, government procurement, intellectual property rights, contingency protection, environment and rules of origin.
Download or read book The Economics of the World Trading System written by Kyle Bagwell and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2004-08-20 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: World trade is governed by the rules of the World Trade Organization (WTO), the successor to the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). The WTO sets rules of conduct for the international trade of goods and services and for intellectual property rights, provides a forum for multinational negotiations to resolve trade problems, and has a formal mechanism for dispute settlement. It is the primary institution working, through rule-based bargaining, at freeing trade. In this book, Kyle Bagwell and Robert Staiger provide an economic analysis and justification for the purpose and design of the GATT/WTO. They summarize their own research, discuss the major features of the GATT agreement, and survey the literature on trade agreements. Their focus on the terms-of-trade externality is particularly original and ties the book together. Topics include the theory of trade agreements, the origin and design of the GATT and the WTO, the principles of reciprocity, the most favored nation principle, terms-of-trade theory, enforcement, preferential trade agreements, labor and environmental standards, competition policy, and agricultural export subsidies.
Download or read book Regionalism versus Multilateral Trade Arrangements written by Takatoshi Ito and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2007-12-01 with total page 432 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: There is no doubt that the open multilateral trading system after World War II was a key ingredient in the rapid economic development of the entire world. Especially in Hong Kong, Korea, Singapore, and Taiwan, exports increased dramatically both in absolute terms and as a percentage of GNP. In the 1980s, however, preferential trading arrangements (PTAs) began to emerge as significant factors affecting world trade. This volume contains thirteen papers that analyze the tensions between multilateral trading systems and preferential trade arrangements and the impact of these tensions on East Asia. The first four chapters introduce PTAs conceptually and focus on the unique political issues that these agreements involve. The next five essays present more direct empirical analyses of existing PTAs and their economic effects, primarily in East Asia. The last four papers concentrate on the outcomes of individual East Asian nations' trading policies in specific instances of preferential agreements.
Download or read book The Evolution of the Trading System written by Sung Mi Kim and published by . This book was released on 2022 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Over the last 40 years, there has been a proliferation of preferential trade agreements (PTAs) that vary in terms of their content and design. This dissertation examines the impetus for the expansion in the scope of these PTAs, and then the implications of these mini-lateral agreements on the more general multilateral trade regime. To gain a better understanding of the micro foundations of specific rules, this study examines both domestic sources of PTA variation and then once enacted, the behavioral implications of the agreement, focusing on ex post litigation. The comparison of the ex ante interests, and then the ex post behavior of domestic groups focuses on one key institutional feature of all bilateral PTAs: dispute settlement mechanisms (DSMs). On the surface, the design of DSMs looks very similar across bilateral PTAs, but a closer look at the details suggests important differences, including the statutory time frame of the dispute settlement process. This thesis argues that governments vary the content of PTA dispute settlement mechanisms to garner domestic support for trade liberalization. In order to assure passage of a treaty that opens up trade flows, governments incorporate design features at the behest of powerful domestic actors. Once agreed to, however, these differences in PTA design do not create a "spaghetti bowl" of conflicting and incoherent rules that undermine the trading system. PTAs do not exist in a vacuum but rather, they are part of a larger set of economic transactions that occur among nations. Relative differences in economic wealth will have behavioral implications on how governments use these agreed upon rules. Instead of turning to the bilateral treaty to deal with a trading issue between the two states, the weaker party always chooses to resolve the dispute through the WTO. To justify their choice of forum, governments use rhetoric to build and sustain the legitimacy of the WTO system as the focal point for dispute settlement. The dissertation concludes with a more optimistic view on the future of the trading order than is common today. PTAs re-enforce the WTO multilateral trading system, given that there is shared consensus on the fundamental goal of international coordination on trade under the WTO's leadership.
Download or read book Challenges to the Multilateral Trading System written by Marco Wagner and published by Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft. This book was released on 2010 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This dissertation investigates the efficiency of trade liberalization in the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT)/World Trade Organization (WTO) framework. The book analyzes the relationship between GATT/WTO and related international institutions, such as the Generalized System of Preferences and regional trade agreements. While the analyses are also based on theoretical models, the workhorse of the study is the well-known gravity model framework, in conjunction with vector auto-regressive analysis. The various analyses highlight the role of GATT/WTO as an important player in global trade: a) GATT/WTO has a substantial promoting effect on international trade; b) trade promotion of developing countries should best be served by GATT/WTO, rather than by preferential schemes under the Generalized System of Preferences; and c) GATT/WTO is not undermined by the proliferation of regional trade agreements - rather regional trade agreements stimulate multilateral trade liberalization under GATT/WTO. Dissertation.
Download or read book Trade Facilitation in the Multilateral Trading System written by Hao Wu and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2018-07-11 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Negotiations on trade facilitation were concluded at the WTO 9th Ministerial Conference in 2013, and the Agreements on Trade Facilitation (TFA), therefore, became the first fully multilateral agreement in WTO history. Since then, trade facilitation has been in the limelight on the stage of the world trading system. During recent years, the TFA has been consistently on the agenda of the summits of G20, G7, and APEC. The Agreement has come into force and shall be implemented on a global scale. As a result, the WTO members shall be prepared to translate the Agreement into their domestic legislation, which will involve a series of reforms in trade laws and policies. There are extensive voices demanding a comprehensive expatiation on trade facilitation and the TFA. It is essential to systematically delve into the genesis of trade facilitation, revisit the course where the TFA came into being, and analyse the well-turned legalese of the TFA. This book meets this demand. This book is path-breaking in these aspects: it expounds on the rationales for trade facilitation and the significance of constituting an international accord on trade facilitation; it restores the one-century track of the international community’s talks on trade facilitation, from the times of the League of Nations to the WTO era; it reveals how the WTO negotiating mechanisms enabled the TFA to be nailed down, which would be enlightening for trade diplomats engaged in other WTO negotiations; and it provides an in-depth commentary on the TFA articles, which will help stakeholders more accurately understand and implement the Agreement. This book will be especially valuable for government officials and policy-makers, trade practitioners, lawyers, advisers, and scholars interested in international economic law, WTO law, international trade, international relations, and international development studies.
Download or read book Preferential Trade Agreements written by Kyle W. Bagwell and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2011-03-07 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume assembles a stellar group of scholars and experts to examine preferential trade agreements (PTAs), a topic that has time and again attracted the interest of analysts. It presents a discussion of the evolving economic analysis regarding PTAs and the various dysfunctions that continually place them among the priority items for (re)negotiation by the WTO. The book explores recent empirical research that casts doubt on the old 'trade diversion' school and debates why the WTO should deal with PTAs and if PTAs belong under the mandate of the WTO as we now know it.
Download or read book Competitive Liberalization written by Soamiely Andriamananjara and published by . This book was released on 2004 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This article discusses whether the current proliferation of preferential trade agreements - the so-called competitive liberalization - encourages evolution toward multilateral free trade. It argues that countries pursuing preferential trade initiatives are in pursuit of the economic rents resulting from the trade diversion associated with trade preference (or discrimination). By lowering the margin of preference, multilateral trade liberalization reduces those rents and is likely to be resisted by members of trade-diverting preferential blocs. Future preferential agreements should be designed to be less trade diverting in order to be more compatible with the objective of global free trade.
Download or read book Most favoured nation Treatment written by United Nations Conference on Trade and Development and published by . This book was released on 2010 with total page 164 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The publication contains an explanation of Most Favored Nation (MFN) treatment and some of the key issues that arise in its negotiation, particularly the scope and application of MFN treatment to the liberalization and protection of foreign investors in recent treaty practice. The paper provides policy options as regards the traditional application of MFN treatment and identifies reactions by States to the unexpected broad use of MFN treatment, and provides several drafting options, such as specifying or narrowing down the scope of application of MFN treatment to certain types of activities, clarifying the nature of "treatment" under the IIA, clarifying the comparison that an arbitral tribunal needs to undertake as well as a qualification of the comparison "in like circumstances" or excluding its use in investor-State cases.
Download or read book Trading Blocs written by Jagdish N. Bhagwati and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 1999 with total page 626 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The recent proliferation of free trade areas and customs unions in the world trading system has led to a revival of interest in the economic analysis of Preferential Trade Agreements (PTAs). The principal theoretical question of the 1950s and 1960s (Viner) was whether PTAs encourage or discourage the worldwide nondiscriminatory freeing of trade. The essays in this volume present the central contributions to the analytical approaches developed to examine these questions. -- Provided by publisher.
