IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/imf/imfwpa/2008-065.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Regionalism or Multilateralism? A Political Economy Choice

Author

Listed:
  • Ms. Giorgia Albertin

Abstract

This paper provides a political economy analysis of the incentives underpinning a country's decision to enter a regional trade agreement when a multilateral free trade agreement is available, and of how entering a regional trade agreement affects the incentives to pursue multilateral trade liberalization. Taking into account the influence exerted by organized interest groups in the formation of trade agreements, we derive a formal condition under which a regional trade agreement is preferred to a multilateral one. Furthermore, we show that a country's decision to enter a regional trade agreement unambiguously undermines the incentives towards multilateral trade liberalization.

Suggested Citation

  • Ms. Giorgia Albertin, 2008. "Regionalism or Multilateralism? A Political Economy Choice," IMF Working Papers 2008/065, International Monetary Fund.
    • Handle: RePEc:imf:imfwpa:2008/065
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/cat/longres.aspx?sk=21821
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Bagwell, Kyle & Staiger, Robert W., 1997. "Multilateral tariff cooperation during the formation of customs unions," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 42(1-2), pages 91-123, February.
    2. Hélène Rey & Philippe Martin, 2006. "Globalization and Emerging Markets: With or Without Crash?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(5), pages 1631-1651, December.
    3. Bagwell, Kyle & Staiger, Robert W, 1997. "Multilateral Tariff Cooperation during the Formation of Free Trade Areas," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 38(2), pages 291-319, May.
    4. James E. Anderson & Eric van Wincoop, 2004. "Trade Costs," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 42(3), pages 691-751, September.
    5. Christian Broda & David E. Weinstein, 2006. "Globalization and the Gains From Variety," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 121(2), pages 541-585.
    6. Bond, Eric W. & Syropoulos, Constantinos & Winters, L. Alan, 2001. "Deepening of regional integration and multilateral trade agreements," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 53(2), pages 335-361, April.
    7. Elhanan Helpman & Assaf Razin (ed.), 1991. "International Trade and Trade Policy," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262081997, December.
    8. Jaime MELO DE & Olivier CADOT & OLARREAGA, 1996. "Lobbying and the Structure of Protection," Working Papers 199634, CERDI.
    9. Pravin Krishna, 1996. "Regionalism and Multilateralism: A Political Economy Approach," Working Papers 96-5, Brown University, Department of Economics.
    10. Head, Keith & Mayer, Thierry, 2004. "The empirics of agglomeration and trade," Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, in: J. V. Henderson & J. F. Thisse (ed.), Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 59, pages 2609-2669, Elsevier.
    11. repec:hal:wpspec:info:hdl:2441/10191 is not listed on IDEAS
    12. B. Douglas Bernheim & Michael D. Whinston, 1986. "Menu Auctions, Resource Allocation, and Economic Influence," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 101(1), pages 1-31.
    13. Grossman, Gene M & Helpman, Elhanan, 1994. "Protection for Sale," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 84(4), pages 833-850, September.
    14. Mayer, Wolfgang, 1984. "Endogenous Tariff Formation," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 74(5), pages 970-985, December.
    15. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/10191 is not listed on IDEAS
    16. Martin Richardson, 2017. "Endogenous Protection and Trade Diversion," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Dimensions of Trade Policy, chapter 5, pages 107-127, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    17. Winters, L. Alan, 1996. "Regionalism versus multilateralism," Policy Research Working Paper Series 1687, The World Bank.
    18. Ornelas, Emanuel, 2005. "Trade creating free trade areas and the undermining of multilateralism," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 49(7), pages 1717-1735, October.
    19. Pravin Krishna, 1998. "Regionalism and Multilateralism: A Political Economy Approach," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 113(1), pages 227-251.
    20. Levy, Philip I, 1997. "A Political-Economic Analysis of Free-Trade Agreements," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 87(4), pages 506-519, September.
    21. Dominique Desruelle & Martin Richardson, 2017. "Fortress Europe: Jericho or Château d’If?," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Dimensions of Trade Policy, chapter 10, pages 195-217, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    22. Ornelas, Emanuel, 2005. "Endogenous free trade agreements and the multilateral trading system," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 67(2), pages 471-497, December.
    23. Panagariya, Arvind & Findlay, Ronald & DEC, 1994. "A political - economy analysis of free trade areas and customs unions," Policy Research Working Paper Series 1261, The World Bank.
    24. Bond, Eric W. & Syropoulos, Constantinos, 1996. "The size of trading blocs Market power and world welfare effects," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 40(3-4), pages 411-437, May.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Maggi, Giovanni, 2014. "International Trade Agreements," Handbook of International Economics, in: Gopinath, G. & Helpman, . & Rogoff, K. (ed.), Handbook of International Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 0, pages 317-390, Elsevier.
    2. Kyle Bagwell & Chad P. Bown & Robert W. Staiger, 2016. "Is the WTO Passé?," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 54(4), pages 1125-1231, December.
    3. Richard Baldwin, 2008. "Big-Think Regionalism: A Critical Survey," NBER Working Papers 14056, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Staiger, Robert & Bagwell, Kyle & Bown, Chad, 2015. "Is the WTO Passé?," CEPR Discussion Papers 10672, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    5. Furusawa, Taiji & Konishi, Hideo, 2007. "Free trade networks," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 72(2), pages 310-335, July.
    6. Cadot, Olivier & de Melo, Jaime & Olarreaga, Marcelo, 2001. "Can bilateralism ease the pains of multilateral trade liberalization?," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 45(1), pages 27-44, January.
    7. Arvind Panagariya & Rupa Dutta Gupta, 2003. "Did the Multi-fiber Agreement Make the NAFTA Politically More Acceptable? A Theoretical Analysis," International Trade 0308010, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    8. Stoyanov, Andrey & Yildiz, Halis Murat, 2015. "Preferential versus multilateral trade liberalization and the role of political economy," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 80(C), pages 140-164.
    9. Emanuel Ornelas, 2000. "Free Trade Areas with Politically Active Oligopolies," Econometric Society World Congress 2000 Contributed Papers 1457, Econometric Society.
    10. Mohammad Amin, 2004. "Time Inconsistency of Trade Policy and Multilateralism," International Trade 0402002, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    11. Saggi, Kamal & Yildiz, Halis Murat, 2005. "Welfare effects of preferential trade agreements under optimal tariffs," MPRA Paper 17562, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    12. Ornelas, Emanuel, 2008. "Feasible multilateralism and the effects of regionalism," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 74(1), pages 202-224, January.
    13. Mr. Arvind Panagariya & Rupa Duttagupta, 2003. "Free Trade Areas and Rules of Origin: Economics and Politics," IMF Working Papers 2003/229, International Monetary Fund.
    14. repec:smu:ecowpa:1409 is not listed on IDEAS
    15. Ana Mauleon & Huasheng Song & Vincent Vannetelbosch, 2010. "Networks of Free Trade Agreements among Heterogeneous Countries," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 12(3), pages 471-500, June.
    16. Rupa Duttagupta & Arvind Panagariya, 2007. "Free Trade Areas And Rules Of Origin: Economics And Politics," Economics and Politics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 19(2), pages 169-190, July.
    17. Hinnerk Gnutzmann & Arevik Gnutzmann‐Mkrtchyan, 2019. "The silent success of customs unions," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 52(1), pages 178-224, February.
    18. Winters, L. Alan, 1996. "Regionalism versus Multilateralism," CEPR Discussion Papers 1525, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    19. Caroline L. Freund, 1998. "Multilateralism and the endogenous formation of PTAs," International Finance Discussion Papers 614, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    20. Pokrivcak, Jan, 2007. "Economics and Political Economy of Regional Trade Agreements," Working Papers 7286, TRADEAG - Agricultural Trade Agreements.
    21. Chrysostomos Tabakis, 2015. "Free-trade areas and special protection," The Journal of International Trade & Economic Development, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 24(8), pages 1054-1076, December.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    WP; free trade; interest group;
    All these keywords.

    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:imf:imfwpa:2008/065. 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: Akshay Modi (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/imfffus.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.