IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bpj/glecon/v8y2008i3n4.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The US Trade Deficit, the Decline of the WTO and the Rise of Regionalism

Author

Listed:
  • Agur Itai

    (Dutch Central Bank and European University Institute)

Abstract

This paper argues that the growing US trade deficit has caused the decline of the WTO and the rise of regional trade agreements. Growing imbalances make countries more selective about who to cooperate with. This is formally shown in a three-country negotiation game that is based on a goods-market model. Subsequently, the model is parameterized and applied quantitatively. Using historical data, the model correctly predicts the date that US-Canada FTA talks began. Based on current data, moreover, the model paints a bleak picture for multilateralism: US exports to China would have to triple for a new WTO round to stand a chance. But even this may be insufficient: a dynamic extension of the game shows that regionalism can have a lock-in effect. Nonetheless, this does not plead for tougher WTO rules on regionalism. As is argued both qualitatively and quantitatively, these may push countries to less, not more, cooperation.

Suggested Citation

  • Agur Itai, 2008. "The US Trade Deficit, the Decline of the WTO and the Rise of Regionalism," Global Economy Journal, De Gruyter, vol. 8(3), pages 1-34, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:bpj:glecon:v:8:y:2008:i:3:n:4
    DOI: 10.2202/1524-5861.1381
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.2202/1524-5861.1381
    Download Restriction: For access to full text, subscription to the journal or payment for the individual article is required.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.2202/1524-5861.1381?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
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Richard E. Baldwin, 1997. "The Causes of Regionalism," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 20(7), pages 865-888, November.
    2. Robert W. Staiger & Kyle Bagwell, 1999. "An Economic Theory of GATT," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 89(1), pages 215-248, March.
    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. Henrik Horn & Giovanni Maggi & Robert W. Staiger, 2010. "Trade Agreements as Endogenously Incomplete Contracts," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 100(1), pages 394-419, March.
    6. Won Chang & L. Alan Winters, 2015. "How Regional Blocs Affect Excluded Countries: The Price Effects of MERCOSUR," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Non-Tariff Barriers, Regionalism and Poverty Essays in Applied International Trade Analysis, chapter 11, pages 199-214, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    7. Kyle Bagwell & Robert W. Staiger, 2011. "What Do Trade Negotiators Negotiate About? Empirical Evidence from the World Trade Organization," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(4), pages 1238-1273, June.
    8. John Kennan & Raymond Riezman, 2013. "Do Big Countries Win Tariff Wars?," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Raymond Riezman (ed.), International Trade Agreements and Political Economy, chapter 4, pages 45-51, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    9. Aghion, Philippe & Antras, Pol & Helpman, Elhanan, 2007. "Negotiating free trade," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 73(1), pages 1-30, September.
    10. Bagwell, Kyle & Staiger, Robert W, 1990. "A Theory of Managed Trade," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 80(4), pages 779-795, September.
    11. Tammy Holmes, 2005. "What Drives Regional Trade Agreements that Work?," IHEID Working Papers 07-2005, Economics Section, The Graduate Institute of International Studies.
    12. Paul Collier, 2006. "Why the WTO is Deadlocked: And What Can Be Done About It," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 29(10), pages 1423-1449, October.
    13. Bhagwati, Jagdish & Greenaway, David & Panagariya, Arvind, 1998. "Trading Preferentially: Theory and Policy," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 108(449), pages 1128-1148, July.
    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. Kyle Bagwell & Robert W. Staiger, 2009. "The WTO: Theory and Practice," NBER Working Papers 15445, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    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. Lloyd , Peter, 2013. "Multilateralism is in Crisis," Journal of Money and Economy, Monetary and Banking Research Institute, Central Bank of the Islamic Republic of Iran, vol. 8(2), pages 67-102, April.
    4. Peter Lloyd, 2012. "Multilateralism in Crisis," ARTNeT Working Papers 114, United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP).
    5. Grahame Thompson, 2011. "Financial Globalization? History, Conditions and Prospects," Chapters, in: Jonathan Michie (ed.), The Handbook of Globalisation, Second Edition, chapter 2, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    6. Jorge Luis Sanchez Arevalo & Edgard Monforte Merlo, 2020. "Social-economic Analysis of Physical Integration between Brazil and Peru: Focus for the Regions Linked to the Interoceanic Highway," International Journal of Economics and Financial Issues, Econjournals, vol. 10(3), pages 102-110.
    7. Staiger, Robert W. & Sykes, Alan O., 2010. "‘Currency manipulation’ and world trade," World Trade Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 9(4), pages 583-627, October.

    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. Bagwell,K. & Staiger,R.W., 2000. "GATT-think," Working papers 19, Wisconsin Madison - Social Systems.
    3. Groppo, Valeria & Piermartini, Roberta, 2014. "Trade policy uncertainty and the WTO," WTO Staff Working Papers ERSD-2014-23, World Trade Organization (WTO), Economic Research and Statistics Division.
    4. Nken, Moïse & Yildiz, Halis Murat, 2017. "Implications of multilateral tariff bindings on the formation of preferential trade agreements and quest for global free trade," MPRA Paper 83209, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    5. 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.
    6. Lake, James & Roy, Santanu, 2017. "Are global trade negotiations behind a fragmented world of “gated globalization”?," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 108(C), pages 117-136.
    7. Richard Baldwin, 2008. "Big-Think Regionalism: A Critical Survey," NBER Working Papers 14056, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. repec:smu:ecowpa:1409 is not listed on IDEAS
    9. Eric Conglin Chi & Halis Murat Yildiz, 2024. "Dynamic preferential trade agreement formation and the role of political economy," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 62(2), pages 748-781, April.
    10. Moïse Nken & Halis Murat Yildiz, 2022. "Implications of multilateral tariff bindings on the extent of preferential trade agreement formation," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 73(1), pages 301-347, February.
    11. Baldwin, Richard Edward & Rieder , Roland, 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, December.
    12. 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.
    13. 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).
    14. Mrázová, Monika & Vines, David & Zissimos, Ben, 2013. "Is the GATT/WTO's Article XXIV bad?," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 89(1), pages 216-232.
    15. Ornelas, Emanuel, 2005. "Endogenous free trade agreements and the multilateral trading system," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 67(2), pages 471-497, December.
    16. Sajal Lahiri & Peri Silva, 2016. "Potential Pareto-Improving Move Toward Most Favored Nation Tariffs," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 54(2), pages 1086-1104, April.
    17. Ralph Ossa, 2011. "A "New Trade" Theory of GATT/WTO Negotiations," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 119(1), pages 122-152.
    18. Baybars Karacaovali & Nuno Limão, 2018. "The clash of liberalizations: Preferential vs. multilateral trade liberalization in the European Union," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Policy Externalities and International Trade Agreements, chapter 14, pages 373-401, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    19. Takaaki Aoki, 2008. "Some aspects on regional integration, comparative advantage and consumer's diversity," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 40(18), pages 2361-2368.
    20. Baldwin, Richard & Jaimovich, Dany, 2012. "Are Free Trade Agreements contagious?," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(1), pages 1-16.
    21. 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..

    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:bpj:glecon:v:8:y:2008:i:3:n:4. 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: Peter Golla (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.degruyter.com .

    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.