IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/tou/journl/v29y2009p11-30.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Growth Of Regional Economic Integration Agreements And The Middle East

Author

Listed:
  • Scott L. BAIER

    (John E. Walker Department of Economics, Clemson University)

  • Jeffrey H. BERGSTRAND

    (Department of Finance, Mendoza College of Business and Fellow, Kellogg Institute for international Studies, University of Notre Dame, and CESifo, Notre Dame, Indiana)

  • Peter EGGER

    (Ifo Institute for Economic Research, Ludwig-Maximilian University of Munich)

Abstract

One of the most notable events of the world economy over the past twenty years has been the phenomenal growth in the number of international economic integration agreements, such as free trade agreements. This paper discusses the roles of “competitive liberalization” by nations’ governments and possible “domino effects” in the process of regionalism. Country pairs that tend to form free trade agreements tend to be closer to each other, more remote from the rest of the world, and larger and more similar in economic size. We examine the role of these economic factors for predicting the likelihoods of bilateral free trade agreements between Israel with Egypt, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia.

Suggested Citation

  • Scott L. BAIER & Jeffrey H. BERGSTRAND & Peter EGGER, 2009. "The Growth Of Regional Economic Integration Agreements And The Middle East," Region et Developpement, Region et Developpement, LEAD, Universite du Sud - Toulon Var, vol. 29, pages 11-30.
    • Handle: RePEc:tou:journl:v:29:y:2009:p:11-30
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://regionetdeveloppement.univ-tln.fr/wp-content/uploads/1-Baier-Bergstrand-Egger.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Robert J. Barro, 2013. "Inflation and Economic Growth," Annals of Economics and Finance, Society for AEF, vol. 14(1), pages 121-144, May.
    2. Nicolas PÉIDY, 2005. "Toward A Pan-Arab Free Trade Area: Assessing Trade Potential Effects Of The Agadir Agreement," The Developing Economies, Institute of Developing Economies, vol. 43(3), pages 329-345, September.
    3. Egger, Peter & Larch, Mario, 2008. "Interdependent preferential trade agreement memberships: An empirical analysis," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 76(2), pages 384-399, December.
    4. James E. Anderson & Eric van Wincoop, 2003. "Gravity with Gravitas: A Solution to the Border Puzzle," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 93(1), pages 170-192, March.
    5. Martin, Philippe & Rogers, Carol Ann, 1997. "Stabilization Policy, Learning-by-Doing, and Economic Growth," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 49(2), pages 152-166, April.
    6. Amichai Kilchevsky & Jeffrey Cason & Kirsten Wandschneider, 2007. "Peace and Economic Interdependence in the Middle East," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 30(4), pages 647-664, April.
    7. Richard E. Baldwin, 2011. "Multilateralising Regionalism: Spaghetti Bowls as Building Blocks on the Path to Global Free Trade," Chapters, in: Miroslav N. Jovanović (ed.), International Handbook on the Economics of Integration, Volume I, chapter 2, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    8. C. Fred Bergsten, 1996. "Competitive Liberalization and Global Free Trade: A Vision for the Early 21st Century," Working Paper Series WP96-15, Peterson Institute for International Economics.
    9. David H. Romer & Jeffrey A. Frankel, 1999. "Does Trade Cause Growth?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 89(3), pages 379-399, June.
    10. Michaely, Michael, 1977. "Exports and growth : An empirical investigation," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 4(1), pages 49-53, February.
    11. Xavier Sala-I-Martin, 1997. "Transfers, Social Safety Nets, and Economic Growth," IMF Staff Papers, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 44(1), pages 81-102, March.
    12. Polachek, Solomon W. & Seiglie, Carlos, 2007. "Trade, Peace and Democracy: An Analysis of Dyadic Dispute," Handbook of Defense Economics, in: Keith Hartley & Todd Sandler (ed.), Handbook of Defense Economics, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 31, pages 1017-1073, Elsevier.
    13. Frankel, Jeffrey & Stein, Ernesto & Wei, Shang-jin, 1995. "Trading blocs and the Americas: The natural, the unnatural, and the super-natural," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 47(1), pages 61-95, June.
    14. Dean A. DeRosa & John P. Gilbert, 2005. "Predicting Trade Expansion under FTAs and Multilateral Agreements," Working Paper Series WP05-13, Peterson Institute for International Economics.
    15. Dollar, David, 1992. "Outward-Oriented Developing Economies Really Do Grow More Rapidly: Evidence from 95 LDCs, 1976-1985," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 40(3), pages 523-544, April.
    16. Daniel McFadden, 1975. "The Revealed Preferences of a Government Bureaucracy: Theory," Bell Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 6(2), pages 401-416, Autumn.
    17. Abigail Barr, 1995. "The missing factor: entrepreneurial networks, enterprises and economic growth in Ghana," CSAE Working Paper Series 1995-11, Centre for the Study of African Economies, University of Oxford.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Thorvaldur Gylfason & Inmaculada Martínez-Zarzoso & Per Magnus Wijkman, 2012. "How Free Trade Can Help Convert the 'Arab Spring' into Permanent Peace and Democracy," CESifo Working Paper Series 3882, CESifo.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Peter Henry, 2007. "Capital Account Liberalization: Theory, Evidence, and Speculation," Discussion Papers 07-004, Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research.
    2. Dibyendu Maiti & Sugata Marjit, 2009. "Regional Openness, Income Growth And Disparity Across Major Indian States During 1980-2004," Development Economics Working Papers 22927, East Asian Bureau of Economic Research.
    3. Scott L. Baier & Jeffrey H. Bergstrand & Peter Egger & Patrick A. McLaughlin, 2008. "Do Economic Integration Agreements Actually Work? Issues in Understanding the Causes and Consequences of the Growth of Regionalism," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 31(4), pages 461-497, April.
    4. Massimiliano Affinito, 2011. "Convergence clubs, the euro-area rank and the relationship between banking and real convergence," Temi di discussione (Economic working papers) 809, Bank of Italy, Economic Research and International Relations Area.
    5. McNamara, Paul E. & Ulimwengu, John M. & Leonard, Kenneth L., 2010. "Do health investments improve agricultural productivity? Lessons from agricultural household and health research," IFPRI discussion papers 1012, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
    6. Antonio Paradiso & Saten Kumar & B. Bhaskara Rao, 2013. "The growth effects of education in Australia," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 45(27), pages 3843-3852, September.
    7. Murtin, Fabrice & Viarengo, Martina, 2008. "The convergence of compulsory schooling in Western Europe: 1950-2000," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 23311, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    8. Jan Fagerberg & Maryann Feldman & Martin Srholec, 2011. "Technological Dynamics and Social Capability: Comparing U.S. States and European Nations," Working Papers on Innovation Studies 20111114, Centre for Technology, Innovation and Culture, University of Oslo.
    9. Heinzel, Christoph & Winkler, Ralph, 2006. "Gradual versus structural technological change in the transition to a low-emission energy industry: How time-to-build and differing social and individual discount rates influence environmental and tec," Dresden Discussion Paper Series in Economics 09/06, Technische Universität Dresden, Faculty of Business and Economics, Department of Economics.
    10. Spiliopoulos, Leonidas, 2010. "The determinants of macroeconomic volatility: A Bayesian model averaging approach," MPRA Paper 26832, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    11. David E. Bloom, 2011. "Population Dynamics in India and Implications for Economic Growth," PGDA Working Papers 6511, Program on the Global Demography of Aging.
    12. Chang Yongsung & Hornstein Andreas, 2015. "Transition dynamics in the neoclassical growth model: the case of South Korea," The B.E. Journal of Macroeconomics, De Gruyter, vol. 15(2), pages 649-676, July.
    13. Mark V. JANIKAS & Sergio J. REY, 2008. "On The Relationships Between Spatial Clustering, Inequality, And Economic Growth In The United States : 1969-2000," Region et Developpement, Region et Developpement, LEAD, Universite du Sud - Toulon Var, vol. 27, pages 13-34.
    14. Boubtane, Ekrame & Coulibaly, Dramane & Rault, Christophe, 2013. "Immigration, unemployment and GDP in the host country: Bootstrap panel Granger causality analysis on OECD countries," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 33(C), pages 261-269.
    15. Jorge Martinez-Vazquez & Violeta Vulovic & Yongzheng Liu, 2011. "Direct versus Indirect Taxation: Trends, Theory, and Economic Significance," Chapters, in: Emilio Albi & Jorge Martinez-Vazquez (ed.), The Elgar Guide to Tax Systems, chapter 2, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    16. Alka Obadić & Aleksander Aristovnik, 2011. "Relative efficiency of higher education in Croatia and Slovenia: an international comparison," The AMFITEATRU ECONOMIC journal, Academy of Economic Studies - Bucharest, Romania, vol. 13(30), pages 362-376, June.
    17. Fernando de Holanda Barbosa, 2011. "The natural rate of interest in a small open economy," Working Papers 0121, Universidade Federal do Paraná, Department of Economics.
    18. Raimundo Soto & Rosalía Vásquez, 2011. "The Efficiency Cost of the Kafala in Dubai: A Stochastic Frontier Analysis," Documentos de Trabajo 399, Instituto de Economia. Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile..
    19. Vatthanamixay Chansomphou & Masaru Ichihashi, 2011. "Foreign aid, foreign direct investment and economic growth of Lao PDR," IDEC DP2 Series 1-2, Hiroshima University, Graduate School for International Development and Cooperation (IDEC).
    20. Graff, Michael & Karmann, Alexander, 2001. "Does financial activity cause economic growth?," Dresden Discussion Paper Series in Economics 01/01, Technische Universität Dresden, Faculty of Business and Economics, Department of Economics.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ECONOMIC INTEGRATION; FREE TRADE AGREEMENTS; TRADE; TRADE POLICY;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • F10 - International Economics - - Trade - - - General
    • F12 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Models of Trade with Imperfect Competition and Scale Economies; Fragmentation
    • F13 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Trade Policy; International Trade Organizations
    • F15 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Economic Integration

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:tou:journl:v:29:y:2009:p:11-30. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Christophe Van Huffel (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/letlnfr.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.