IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ags/catpcp/156228.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Regional Agreements: A Stocktaking Based on WTO Notifications

Author

Listed:
  • Whalley, John

Abstract

I provide a stocktaking on the profile of regional trade agreements in the global trading system over the last decade focusing heavily on the period since the 2008 financial crisis and relying heavily on WTO notifications. Regional agreements cover both regional trade agreements and broader economic cooperation agreements, but exclude bilateral investment and tax treaties. I note the continued growth in the number of regional agreements, notified to the WTO, as evidence of the lack of reduced momentum in the growth of regional agreements. I temper this by noting that some of this continued growth reflects changes to existing agreements rather than de novo new agreements. Much of the growth is also in agreements between small economies. Finally, I note the recent prospects for new large-country to large-country agreements; especially the TPP, US-EU and Japan-Korea-China agreements. These are yet to be concluded and notified.

Suggested Citation

  • Whalley, John, 2013. "Regional Agreements: A Stocktaking Based on WTO Notifications," Commissioned Papers 156228, Canadian Agricultural Trade Policy Research Network.
    • Handle: RePEc:ags:catpcp:156228
    DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.156228
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/156228/files/Commissioned%20Paper%202013-05%20Whalley.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.22004/ag.econ.156228?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Antoni Estevadeordal & Caroline Freund & Emanuel Ornelas, 2008. "Does Regionalism Affect Trade Liberalization Toward Nonmembers?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 123(4), pages 1531-1575.
    2. Hamilton, Robert W & Whalley, John, 1985. "Geographically Discriminatory Trade Arrangements," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 67(3), pages 446-455, August.
    3. Harris, Richard, 1984. "Applied General Equilibrium Analysis of Small Open Economies with Scale Economies and Imperfect Competition," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 74(5), pages 1016-1032, December.
    4. Caroline Freund, 2010. "Third‐country Effects of Regional Trade Agreements," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 33(11), pages 1589-1605, November.
    5. Wonnacott, Ronald J, 1996. "Free-Trade Agreements: For Better or Worse?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 86(2), pages 62-66, May.
    6. Caroline Freund & Emanuel Ornelas, 2010. "Regional Trade Agreements," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 2(1), pages 139-166, September.
    7. Andrew K. Rose, 2004. "Do We Really Know That the WTO Increases Trade?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 94(1), pages 98-114, March.
    8. Paul Wonnacott & Ronald Wonnacott, 2005. "What's the Point of Reciprocal Trade Negotiations? Exports, Imports, and Gains from Trade," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 28(1), pages 1-20, January.
    9. Paul Wonnacott & Ronald J. Wonnacott, 1982. "Free Trade between the United States and Canada: Fifteen Years Later," Canadian Public Policy, University of Toronto Press, vol. 8(s1), pages 412-427, October.
    10. Jeffrey A. Frankel, 1997. "Regional Trading Blocs in the World Economic System," Peterson Institute Press: All Books, Peterson Institute for International Economics, number 72, October.
    11. Jason H. Grant, 2013. "Is the growth of regionalism as significant as the headlines suggest? Lessons from agricultural trade," Agricultural Economics, International Association of Agricultural Economists, vol. 44(1), pages 93-109, January.
    12. Caroline Freund & Emanuel Ornelas, 2010. "Regional trade agreements: blessing or burden?," CentrePiece - The magazine for economic performance 313, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    13. Kym Anderson, 2010. "Can the WTO reduce agricultural trade distortions?," The Journal of International Trade & Economic Development, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 19(1), pages 109-134.
    14. John McLaren, 2002. "A Theory of Insidious Regionalism," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 117(2), pages 571-608.
    15. Jason H. Grant & Dayton M. Lambert, 2008. "Do Regional Trade Agreements Increase Members' Agricultural Trade?," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 90(3), pages 765-782.
    16. Baier, Scott L. & Bergstrand, Jeffrey H., 2007. "Do free trade agreements actually increase members' international trade?," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 71(1), pages 72-95, March.
    17. Karl Meilke & James Rude & Steven Zahniser, 2008. "Is ‘NAFTA Plus’ an Option in the North American Agrifood Sector?," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 31(7), pages 925-946, July.
    18. World Bank, 2005. "Global Economic Prospects 2005 : Trade, Regionalism and Development," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 14783, December.
    19. Anne O. Krueger, 1999. "Trade Creation and Trade Diversion Under NAFTA," NBER Working Papers 7429, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    20. Josling, Timothy E., 2010. "Reflections on the Exceptional Treatment of Agriculture in the WTO," German Journal of Agricultural Economics, Humboldt-Universitaet zu Berlin, Department for Agricultural Economics, vol. 59(Supplemen), pages 1-14, December.
    21. Arvind Panagariya, 1994. "East Asia and the New Regionalism in World Trade," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 17(6), pages 817-839, November.
    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. George Deltas & Klaus Desmet & Giovanni Facchini, 2012. "Hub‐and‐spoke free trade areas: theory and evidence from Israel," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 45(3), pages 942-977, August.
    2. Marco Fugazza & Frédéric Robert-Nicoud, 2014. "The “Emulator Effect” of the Uruguay Round on US Regionalism," Review of International Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 22(5), pages 1049-1078, November.
    3. Ornelas, Emanuel, 2012. "Preferential trade agreements and the labor market," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 121752, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    4. Ornelas, Emanuel & Tovar, Patricia, 2022. "Intra-bloc tariffs and preferential margins in trade agreements," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 138(C).
    5. Lake, James & Nken, Moïse & Yildiz, Halis Murat, 2020. "Tariff bindings and the dynamic formation of Preferential Trade Agreements," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 122(C).
    6. Fugazza, Marco & Nicita, Alessandro, 2011. "Measuring preferential market access," MPRA Paper 38565, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    7. Hinnerk Gnutzmann & Arevik Gnutzmann-Mkrtchyan, 2019. "The silent success of customs unions," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 52(1), pages 178-224, February.
    8. Brandi, Clara & Schwab, Jakob & Berger, Axel & Morin, Jean-Frédéric, 2020. "Do environmental provisions in trade agreements make exports from developing countries greener?," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 129(C).
    9. 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.
    10. Staiger, Robert & Bagwell, Kyle & Bown, Chad, 2015. "Is the WTO Passé?," CEPR Discussion Papers 10672, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    11. repec:ilo:ilowps:469183 is not listed on IDEAS
    12. Marco Fugazza & Frédéric Robert-Nicoud, 2012. "The ‘Emulator Effect’ Of The Uruguay Round On United States Regionalism," UNCTAD Blue Series Papers 51, United Nations Conference on Trade and Development.
    13. Fugazza, Marco & Nicita, Alessandro, 2013. "The direct and relative effects of preferential market access," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 89(2), pages 357-368.
    14. Nuno Limão, 2016. "Preferential Trade Agreements," NBER Working Papers 22138, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    15. Xuepeng Liu, 2016. "Trade Agreements and Economic Growth," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 82(4), pages 1374-1401, April.
    16. Gabriele Spilker & Thomas Bernauer & In Song Kim & Helen Milner & Iain Osgood & Dustin Tingley, 2018. "Trade at the margin: Estimating the economic implications of preferential trade agreements," The Review of International Organizations, Springer, vol. 13(2), pages 189-242, June.
    17. Grant, Jason H. & Parmeter, Christopher F., 2008. "Has The World Trade Organization Promoted Successful Regional Trade Agreements?," 2008 Annual Meeting, July 27-29, 2008, Orlando, Florida 6551, American Agricultural Economics Association (New Name 2008: Agricultural and Applied Economics Association).
    18. Manfred Elsig & Bernard M. Hoekman & Joost Pauwelyn, 2016. "Thinking about the performance of the World Trade Organization: A discussion across disciplines," RSCAS Working Papers 2016/13, European University Institute.
    19. Zouheir El-Sahli, 2023. "The Partial and General Equilibrium Effects of the Greater Arab Free Trade Agreement," The International Trade Journal, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 37(2), pages 185-199, March.
    20. Chad P. Bown & Patricia Tovar, 2016. "Preferential Liberalization, Antidumping, and Safeguards: Stumbling Block Evidence from MERCOSUR," Economics and Politics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 28(3), pages 262-294, November.
    21. Jaime DE MELO & Yvonne TSIKATA, 2014. "Regional integration in Africa: Challenges and prospects," Working Papers P93, FERDI.

    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:ags:catpcp:156228. 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: AgEcon Search (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/catprca.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.