IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/wpa/wuwpit/0305002.html

Competitive Liberalization or Competitive Diversion? The Relationship between Preferential Trade Agreements and the Multilateral Trading System

Author

Listed:
  • Soamiely Andriamananjara

    (USITC)

Abstract

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.

Suggested Citation

  • Soamiely Andriamananjara, 2003. "Competitive Liberalization or Competitive Diversion? The Relationship between Preferential Trade Agreements and the Multilateral Trading System," International Trade 0305002, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    • Handle: RePEc:wpa:wuwpit:0305002
    Note: Type of Document - Word - PDF; prepared on IBM PC ; to print on HP/PostScript/Franciscan monk; pages: 14 ; figures: included
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://econwpa.ub.uni-muenchen.de/econ-wp/it/papers/0305/0305002.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. 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.
    2. Anne O. Krueger, 1999. "Are Preferential Trading Arrangements Trade-Liberalizing or Protectionist?," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 13(4), pages 105-124, Fall.
    3. 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.
    4. Pascal Lamy, 2002. "Stepping Stones or Stumbling Blocks? The EU’s Approach Towards the Problem of Multilateralism vs Regionalism in Trade Policy," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 25(10), pages 1399-1413, November.
    5. Richard Baldwin, 1993. "A Domino Theory of Regionalism," NBER Working Papers 4465, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. 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.
    7. Soamiely Andriamananjara, 2000. "Regionalism and Incentives for Multilateralism," Journal of Economic Integration, Center for Economic Integration, Sejong University, vol. 15, pages 1-18.
    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. 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.
    2. Richard Edward Baldwin & Roland Rieder, 2007. "A Test of Endogenous Trade Bloc Formation Theory on EU Data," East Asian Economic Review, Korea Institute for International Economic Policy, vol. 11(2), pages 77-110.
    3. Richard Baldwin, 2008. "Big-Think Regionalism: A Critical Survey," NBER Working Papers 14056, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Antoni Estevadeordal & Kati Suominen, 2008. "Sequencing Regional Trade Integration and Cooperation Agreements," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 31(1), pages 112-140, January.
    5. Jong‐Wha Lee & Innwon Park & Kwanho Shin, 2008. "Proliferating Regional Trade Arrangements: Why and Whither?," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 31(12), pages 1525-1557, December.
    6. 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.
    7. Michele FRATIANNI & Chang HOON HO, 2007. "On the Relationship Between RTA Expansion and Openness," Working Papers 288, Universita' Politecnica delle Marche (I), Dipartimento di Scienze Economiche e Sociali.
    8. Bureau, Christophe & Guimbard, Houssein & Jean, Sebastien, 2016. "What Has Been Left to Multilateralism to Negotiate On?," Conference papers 332753, Purdue University, Center for Global Trade Analysis, Global Trade Analysis Project.
    9. Jagdambe, Subhash & Kannan, Elumalai, 2020. "Effects of ASEAN-India Free Trade Agreement on agricultural trade: The gravity model approach," World Development Perspectives, Elsevier, vol. 19(C).
    10. Mette Ersbak Bang Nielsen, 2006. "The endogenous formation of sustanaible trade agreements," Revista de Economía del Rosario, Universidad del Rosario.
    11. Jong‐Wha Lee & Innwon Park, 2005. "Free Trade Areas in East Asia: Discriminatory or Non‐discriminatory?," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 28(1), pages 21-48, January.
    12. Pantelis Sklias, 2011. "The political economy of regional integration in the Western Balkans," International Journal of Business and Economic Sciences Applied Research (IJBESAR), Democritus University of Thrace (DUTH), Kavala Campus, Greece, vol. 4(3), pages 21-37, December.
    13. Anna PAPACCIO, 2013. "Bilateralism and Multilateralism: a Network Approach," CELPE Discussion Papers 125, CELPE - CEnter for Labor and Political Economics, University of Salerno, Italy.
    14. Alan V. Deardorff & Robert M. Stern, 2004. "EU Expansion and EU Growth," International Economic Association Series, in: Alan V. Deardorff (ed.), The Past, Present and Future of the European Union, chapter 5, pages 74-102, Palgrave Macmillan.
    15. Caroline L. Freund, 2000. "Spaghetti regionalism," International Finance Discussion Papers 680, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    16. 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..
    17. Baldwin, Richard & Jaimovich, Dany, 2012. "Are Free Trade Agreements contagious?," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(1), pages 1-16.
    18. Koumtingué, Nelnan, 2010. "Proliferation of preferential trade agreements: an empirical analysis," MPRA Paper 68917, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 08 Aug 2014.
    19. Chen, Maggie Xiaoyang & Joshi, Sumit, 2010. "Third-country effects on the formation of free trade agreements," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 82(2), pages 238-248, November.
    20. Jean-Christophe Bureau & Houssein Guimbard & Sébastien Jean, 2016. "Competing Liberalizations: Tariffs and Trade in the 21st Century," CESifo Working Paper Series 5962, CESifo.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;

    JEL classification:

    • F02 - International Economics - - General - - - International Economic Order and Integration
    • F15 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Economic Integration
    • F13 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Trade Policy; International Trade Organizations

    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:wpa:wuwpit:0305002. 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: EconWPA The email address of this maintainer does not seem to be valid anymore. Please ask EconWPA to update the entry or send us the correct address (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://econwpa.ub.uni-muenchen.de .

    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.