IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/wbk/wbrwps/2350.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Multilateral trade liberalization and political disintegration - implications for the evolution of free trade areas and customs unions

Author

Listed:
  • Schiff, Maurice

Abstract

The author combines two theories - one about how multilateral trade liberalization affects regional integration, the other about how it affects political disintegration - to explain why the ratio of free trade areas to customs unions has increased over time. Ethier argues (1998, 1999) that multilateral trade liberalization led to the recent wave of regional integration arrangements. Alesina and others (1997), in discussing the number and size of countries, argue that multilateral trade liberalization leads to political disintegration, with an increase in the number of countries. Combining the two arguments, the author hypothesizes that as multilateral trade liberalization proceeds, and the number of regional integration arrangements increases, the ratio of free trade areas to customs unions also increases. The data, which show that ratio increasing in the 1990s, are consistent with the hypothesis.

Suggested Citation

  • Schiff, Maurice, 2000. "Multilateral trade liberalization and political disintegration - implications for the evolution of free trade areas and customs unions," Policy Research Working Paper Series 2350, The World Bank.
    • Handle: RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:2350
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www-wds.worldbank.org/external/default/WDSContentServer/WDSP/IB/2000/07/19/000094946_00063005311738/Rendered/PDF/multi_page.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Enrico Spolaore & Alberto Alesina & Romain Wacziarg, 2000. "Economic Integration and Political Disintegration," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 90(5), pages 1276-1296, December.
    2. Bolton, Patrick & Roland, Gerard & Spolaore, Enrico, 1996. "Economic theories of the break-up and integration of nations," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 40(3-5), pages 697-705, April.
    3. Schiff, Maurice & Winters, L Alan, 1998. "Regional Integration as Diplomacy," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 12(2), pages 271-295, May.
    4. Patrick Bolton & Gérard Roland, 1997. "The Breakup of Nations: A Political Economy Analysis," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 112(4), pages 1057-1090.
    5. Winters, L. Alan, 1996. "Regionalism versus Multilateralism," CEPR Discussion Papers 1525, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    6. Ethier, Wilfred J, 1998. "The New Regionalism," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 108(449), pages 1149-1161, July.
    7. Buchanan, James M & Faith, Roger L, 1987. "Secession and the Limits of Taxation: Toward a Theory of Internal Exit," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 77(5), pages 1023-1031, December.
    8. Richard Baldwin, 1993. "A Domino Theory of Regionalism," NBER Working Papers 4465, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    9. Michalopoulos, Constantine & Tarr, David, 1997. "The economics of customs unions in the Commonwealth of Independent States," Policy Research Working Paper Series 1786, The World Bank.
    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. Edward D. Mansfield & Helen V. Milner & Jon C. Pevehouse, 2008. "Democracy, Veto Players and the Depth of Regional Integration," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 31(1), pages 67-96, January.

    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. Rohner, Dominic & Esteban, Joan & Flamand, Sabine & Morelli, Massimo, 2018. "A Dynamic Theory of Secession," CEPR Discussion Papers 12398, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    2. Grégoire Rota Graziosi, 2004. "La fragmentation politique, une revue de la littérature," Revue Française d'Économie, Programme National Persée, vol. 18(4), pages 193-223.
    3. Michel Le Breton & Shlomo Weber, 2003. "The Art of Making Everybody Happy: How to Prevent a Secession," IMF Staff Papers, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 50(3), pages 1-4.
    4. Sabine Flamand & Massimo Morelli & Dominic Rohner & Joan-Maria Esteban, 2018. "The Survival and Demise of the State: A Dynamic Theory of Secession," Working Papers 1028, Barcelona School of Economics.
    5. ., 2019. "Economic theory of non-territorial unbundling," Chapters, in: The Political Economy of Non-Territorial Exit, chapter 1, pages 14-38, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    6. Filippo Gregorini, 2007. "Political Geography and Income Inequalities," DISCE - Quaderni dell'Istituto di Teoria Economica e Metodi Quantitativi itemq0746, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Dipartimenti e Istituti di Scienze Economiche (DISCE).
    7. Joan Esteban & Sabine Flamand & Massimo Morelli & Dominic Rohner, 2017. "Stay, Split or Strike: Theory and Evidence on Secessionist vs Centrist Conflict," Working Papers 609, IGIER (Innocenzo Gasparini Institute for Economic Research), Bocconi University.
    8. Libman, Alexander Mikhailovich, 2009. "Эндогенные Границы И Распределение Власти В Федерациях И Международных Сообществах [ENDOGENOUS BOUNDARIES AND DISTRIBUTION OF POWER In the Federation]," MPRA Paper 16473, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    9. Persson, Torsten & Tabellini, Guido, 2002. "Political economics and public finance," Handbook of Public Economics, in: A. J. Auerbach & M. Feldstein (ed.), Handbook of Public Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 24, pages 1549-1659, Elsevier.
    10. Fidrmuc, Jan, 2015. "Political economy of fiscal unions," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 40(PA), pages 147-157.
    11. Anesi, Vincent, 2012. "Secessionism and minority protection in an uncertain world," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 96(1), pages 53-61.
    12. Bordignon, Massimo & Brusco, Sandro, 2001. "Optimal secession rules," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 45(10), pages 1811-1834, December.
    13. Thierry Madiès & Grégoire Rota-Grasiozi & Jean-Pierre Tranchant & Cyril Trépier, 2018. "The economics of secession: a review of legal, theoretical, and empirical aspects," Swiss Journal of Economics and Statistics, Springer;Swiss Society of Economics and Statistics, vol. 154(1), pages 1-18, December.
    14. 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.
    15. Michele Ruta, 2005. "Economic Theories of Political (Dis)integration," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 19(1), pages 1-21, February.
    16. Trent J. MacDonald, 2019. "The Political Economy of Non-Territorial Exit," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 18871.
    17. Baskaran, Thushyanthan, 2009. "Supranational Integration And National Reorganization," MPRA Paper 21597, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    18. Grégoire ROTA-GRAZIOSI, 2006. "Economic integration and political fragmentation," Working Papers 200628, CERDI.
    19. repec:ebl:ecbull:v:8:y:2003:i:12:p:1-6 is not listed on IDEAS
    20. Innwon Park & Soonchan Park, 2008. "Reform Creating Regional Trade Agreements And Foreign Direct Investment: Applications For East Asia," Pacific Economic Review, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 13(5), pages 550-566, December.
    21. Anderton,Charles H. & Carter,John R., 2009. "Principles of Conflict Economics," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521875578, December.

    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:wbk:wbrwps:2350. 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: Roula I. Yazigi (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/dvewbus.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.