IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/fip/fedgif/680.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Spaghetti regionalism

Author

Listed:
  • Caroline L. Freund

Abstract

This paper examines the welfare implications of multiple free trade agreements in a model of imperfect competition. We show that free trade is the unique Nash equilibrium under the simple rule that any two countries can form a bilateral free trade agreement. Specifically, a country is always better off forming a bilateral trade agreement with every other country, irrespective of previous agreements. This suggests that each new preferential free trade agreement may be a step towards multilateral free trade.

Suggested Citation

  • Caroline L. Freund, 2000. "Spaghetti regionalism," International Finance Discussion Papers 680, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    • Handle: RePEc:fip:fedgif:680
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.federalreserve.gov/pubs/ifdp/2000/680/default.htm
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: http://www.federalreserve.gov/pubs/ifdp/2000/680/ifdp680.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Brander, James & Krugman, Paul, 1983. "A 'reciprocal dumping' model of international trade," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 15(3-4), pages 313-321, November.
    2. Robert C. Feenstra & Gene M. Grossman & Douglas A. Irwin (ed.), 1996. "The Political Economy of Trade Policy: Papers in Honor of Jagdish Bhagwati," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262061864, April.
    3. 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.
    4. Freund, Caroline, 2000. "Multilateralism and the endogenous formation of preferential trade agreements," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 52(2), pages 359-376, December.
    5. Grossman, Gene M & Helpman, Elhanan, 1995. "The Politics of Free-Trade Agreements," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 85(4), pages 667-690, September.
    6. Sang-Seung, Yi, 1996. "Endogenous formation of customs unions under imperfect competition: open regionalism is good," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 41(1-2), pages 153-177, August.
    7. Barbara J. Spencer & James A. Brander, 1982. "Tariff Protection and Imperfect Competition," Working Paper 517, Economics Department, Queen's University.
    8. John Kennan & Raymond Riezman, 2013. "Optimal Tariff Equilibria with Customs Unions," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Raymond Riezman (ed.), International Trade Agreements and Political Economy, chapter 5, pages 53-66, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    9. Richard Baldwin, 1993. "A Domino Theory of Regionalism," NBER Working Papers 4465, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    10. Baldwin,Richard & Haapararanta,Pertti & Kiander,Jaakko (ed.), 1995. "Expanding Membership of the European Union," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521481342.
    11. Arvind Panagariya, 2000. "Preferential Trade Liberalization: The Traditional Theory and New Developments," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 38(2), pages 287-331, June.
    12. Wilfred J. Ethier, 1998. "Regionalism in a Multilateral World," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 106(6), pages 1214-1245, December.
    13. 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.
    14. Arvind Panagariya & Jagdish Bhagwati, 1996. "The Economics of Preferential Trade Agreements," Books, American Enterprise Institute, number 51856, September.
    15. de Melo, Jaime & Montenegro, Claudio & Panagariya, Arvind, 1992. "Regional integration, old and new," Policy Research Working Paper Series 985, The World Bank.
    16. 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.
    17. 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)

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Furusawa, Taiji & Konishi, Hideo, 2007. "Free trade networks," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 72(2), pages 310-335, July.
    2. Ibarra-Yunez, Alejandro, 2003. "Spaghetti regionalism or strategic foreign trade: some evidence for Mexico," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 72(2), pages 567-584, December.
    3. Christopher Findlay, 2001. "Old Issues in New Regionalism," Asia Pacific Economic Papers 311, Australia-Japan Research Centre, Crawford School of Public Policy, The Australian National University.

    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. 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.).
    2. Furusawa, Taiji & Konishi, Hideo, 2007. "Free trade networks," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 72(2), pages 310-335, July.
    3. 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.
    4. Richard Baldwin, 2008. "Big-Think Regionalism: A Critical Survey," NBER Working Papers 14056, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Mr. Arvind Panagariya & Rupa Duttagupta, 2003. "Free Trade Areas and Rules of Origin: Economics and Politics," IMF Working Papers 2003/229, International Monetary Fund.
    6. Winters, L. Alan, 1996. "Regionalism versus Multilateralism," CEPR Discussion Papers 1525, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    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. 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.
    9. Kamal Saggi & Halis Murat Yildiz, 2018. "Bilateral Trade Agreements and the Feasibility of Multilateral Free Trade," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Kamal Saggi (ed.), Economic Analysis of the Rules and Regulations of the World Trade Organization, chapter 8, pages 168-185, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    10. 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.
    11. Andriamananjara, Soamiely, 1999. "On the size and number of regional integration arrangements - a political economy model," Policy Research Working Paper Series 2117, The World Bank.
    12. Freund, Caroline, 2000. "Multilateralism and the endogenous formation of preferential trade agreements," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 52(2), pages 359-376, December.
    13. 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.
    14. Pokrivcak, Jan, 2007. "Economics and Political Economy of Regional Trade Agreements," Working Papers 7286, TRADEAG - Agricultural Trade Agreements.
    15. Aghion, Philippe & Antras, Pol & Helpman, Elhanan, 2007. "Negotiating free trade," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 73(1), pages 1-30, September.
    16. 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.
    17. Satya P. Das & Subhadip Ghosh, 2006. "Endogenous trading bloc formation in a North‐South global economy," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 39(3), pages 809-830, August.
    18. 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.
    19. Staiger, Robert & Bagwell, Kyle & Bown, Chad, 2015. "Is the WTO Passé?," CEPR Discussion Papers 10672, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    20. Caroline L. Freund, 1998. "Regionalism and permanent diversion," International Finance Discussion Papers 602, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Free trade; International trade;

    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:fip:fedgif:680. 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: Ryan Wolfslayer ; Keisha Fournillier (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/frbgvus.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.