IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ecl/harjfk/rwp06-050.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Recent US Free Trade Initiatives in the Middle East: Opportunities but No Guarantees

Author

Listed:
  • Lawrence, Robert Z.

    (Harvard U)

Abstract

This paper evaluates the US initiative to establish a Free Trade Agreement with countries in the Middle East by signing bilateral agreements with the countries individually and then combining them into a single arrangement. These agreements present new opportunities for Arab countries, but to take full advantage, they will have to complement the agreements with additional policy measures, both individually, and together. The promise comes from the ability to use the agreements as a catalyst for improving regulatory rules and systems at home and facilitating integration with the rest of the region and the world. But the agreements also present problems for Arab countries, first in relating these US agreements to agreements with other trading partners – most importantly the EU; second in creating political difficulties associated with closer relations with the USA given problems in the region, and third, in undertaking the necessary economic and political policies that are necessary to realize the benefits.

Suggested Citation

  • Lawrence, Robert Z., 2006. "Recent US Free Trade Initiatives in the Middle East: Opportunities but No Guarantees," Working Paper Series rwp06-050, Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government.
    • Handle: RePEc:ecl:harjfk:rwp06-050
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://research.hks.harvard.edu/publications/workingpapers/citation.aspx?PubId=4311&type=WPN
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Jeffrey J. Schott (ed.), 2004. "Free Trade Agreements: US Strategies and Priorities," Peterson Institute Press: All Books, Peterson Institute for International Economics, number 375, April.
    2. Marcus Noland & Howard Pack, 2007. "Arab Economies in a Changing World, The," Peterson Institute Press: All Books, Peterson Institute for International Economics, number 3931, April.
    3. Kehoe, Timothy J., 2002. "An Evaluation of the Performance of Applied General Equilibrium Models of the Impact of NAFTA," Conference papers 331066, Purdue University, Center for Global Trade Analysis, Global Trade Analysis Project.
    4. Robert Z. Lawrence & Ahmed Galal, 2005. "Anchoring Reform with a US-Egypt Free Trade Agreement," Peterson Institute Press: All Books, Peterson Institute for International Economics, number pa74, April.
    5. Mr. Ludvig Söderling, 2005. "Is the Middle East and North Africa Region Achieving Its Trade Potential?," IMF Working Papers 2005/090, International Monetary Fund.
    6. Tovias, Alfred & Ugur, Mehmet, 2004. "Can the EU anchor policy reform? The case of the Euro-Med Partnership," Greenwich Papers in Political Economy 3980, University of Greenwich, Greenwich Political Economy Research Centre.
    7. Alfred Tovias & Mehmet Ugur, 2004. "Can the EU Anchor Policy Reform in Third Countries?," European Union Politics, , vol. 5(4), pages 395-418, December.
    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. Michael Thorpe & Sumit Mitra, 2008. "Growing Economic Interdependence of China and the Gulf Cooperation Council," China & World Economy, Institute of World Economics and Politics, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, vol. 16(2), pages 109-124, March.

    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. Frank Schimmelfennig & Hanno Scholtz, 2008. "EU Democracy Promotion in the European Neighbourhood," European Union Politics, , vol. 9(2), pages 187-215, June.
    2. Robert Z. Lawrence, 2007. "A True Development Round? A Review of Joseph E. Stiglitz and Andrew Charlton's Fair Trade for All: How Trade Can Promote Development," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 45(4), pages 1001-1010, December.
    3. Nellie Munin, 2021. "Israel's Trade Alliances Strategy: Enjoying the Best of All Worlds," International Journal of Law and Public Administration, Redfame publishing, vol. 4(2), pages 23-37, December.
    4. Jiang, Tingsong, 2003. "The Impact of China's WTO Accession on its Regional Economies," Australasian Agribusiness Review, University of Melbourne, Department of Agriculture and Food Systems, vol. 11.
    5. Rougier, Eric, 2016. "“Fire in Cairo”: Authoritarian–Redistributive Social Contracts, Structural Change, and the Arab Spring," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 78(C), pages 148-171.
    6. Agata Antkiewicz & John Whalley, 2005. "China's New Regional Trade Agreements," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 28(10), pages 1539-1557, October.
    7. Chang Seung & Edward Waters, 2010. "Evaluating Supply-Side And Demand-Side Shocks For Fisheries: A Computable General Equilibrium (Cge) Model For Alaska," Economic Systems Research, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 22(1), pages 87-109.
    8. Juan Ruiz & Josep M. Vilarrubia, 2007. "The wise use of dummies in gravity models: export potentials in the Euromed region," Working Papers 0720, Banco de España.
    9. Markusen, James R., 2013. "Expansion of trade at the extensive margin: A general gains-from-trade result and illustrative examples," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 89(1), pages 262-270.
    10. repec:bla:jcmkts:v:45:y:2007:i::p:905-926 is not listed on IDEAS
    11. repec:hal:journl:dumas-00905755 is not listed on IDEAS
    12. Timothy J. Kehoe & Kim J. Ruhl, 2013. "How Important Is the New Goods Margin in International Trade?," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 121(2), pages 358-392.
    13. Jonathan I. Dingel & Felix Tintelnot, 2020. "Spatial Economics for Granular Settings," NBER Working Papers 27287, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    14. Filipe R. Campante & Davin Chor, 2012. "Why Was the Arab World Poised for Revolution? Schooling, Economic Opportunities, and the Arab Spring," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 26(2), pages 167-188, Spring.
    15. József Kárpáti, 2011. "The pension systems of Arab countries in the light of socio-economic risks," Public Finance Quarterly, State Audit Office of Hungary, vol. 56(2), pages 179-192.
    16. Tilman Brück & Christine Binzel & Lars Handrich, 2007. "Evaluating Economic Reforms in Syria: Final Report for the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Technische Zusammenarbeit (GTZ)," DIW Berlin: Politikberatung kompakt, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research, volume 35, number pbk35.
    17. Dan Magder, 2005. "Egypt after the Multi-Fiber Arrangement: Global Apparel and Textile Supply Chains as a Route for Industrial Upgrading," Working Paper Series WP05-8, Peterson Institute for International Economics.
    18. Holmøy, Erling & Strøm, Birger, 2013. "Computable General Equilibrium Assessments of Fiscal Sustainability in Norway," Handbook of Computable General Equilibrium Modeling, in: Peter B. Dixon & Dale Jorgenson (ed.), Handbook of Computable General Equilibrium Modeling, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 0, pages 105-158, Elsevier.
    19. Ahmed, Vaqar & O' Donoghue, Cathal, 2007. "CGE-Microsimulation Modelling: A Survey," MPRA Paper 9307, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    20. Koesler, Simon, 2014. "Specifying parameters in computable general equilibrium models using optimal fingerprint detection methods," ZEW Discussion Papers 14-092, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    21. Soo Yuen Chong & Jung Hur, 2007. "Overlapping Free Trade Agreements of Singapore-USA-Japan : A Computational Analysis," Trade Working Papers 21931, East Asian Bureau of Economic Research.
    22. Costinot, Arnaud & Rodríguez-Clare, Andrés, 2014. "Trade Theory with Numbers: Quantifying the Consequences of Globalization," Handbook of International Economics, in: Gopinath, G. & Helpman, . & Rogoff, K. (ed.), Handbook of International Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 0, pages 197-261, Elsevier.

    More about this item

    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:ecl:harjfk:rwp06-050. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/ksharus.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.