IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/wpa/wuwpit/0305002.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

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. 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.
    2. 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.
    3. 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.
    4. Richard Baldwin, 1993. "A Domino Theory of Regionalism," NBER Working Papers 4465, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. 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.
    6. 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.
    7. Andriamananjara, Soamiely, 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. 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.
    3. 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.
    4. Richard Baldwin, 2008. "Big-Think Regionalism: A Critical Survey," NBER Working Papers 14056, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Antoni Estevadeordal & Kati Suominen, 2008. "Sequencing Regional Trade Integration and Cooperation Agreements," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 31(1), pages 112-140, January.
    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. 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.
    9. Pedro J. Martinez Edo, 2011. "Reciprocal liberalization: Bilateral, plurilateral or multilateral?," STUDIES IN TRADE AND INVESTMENT, in: United Nations ESCAP (ed.), Trade beyond Doha: Prospects for Asia-Pacific Least Developed Countries, Studies in Trade and Investment 76, chapter 4, pages 60-94, United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP).
    10. 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.
    11. 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).
    12. 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.
    13. Juyoung Cheong & Do Won Kwak & Kam Ki Tang, 2015. "Can Trade Agreements Curtail Trade Creation and Prevent Trade Diversion?," Review of International Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 23(2), pages 221-238, May.
    14. Arvind Panagariya, 1999. "The Regionalism Debate: An Overview," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 22(4), pages 455-476, June.
    15. Jeffrey J. Schott, 2011. "The Future of the Multilateral Trading System in a Multi-polar World," Chapters, in: Ulrich Volz (ed.), Regional Integration, Economic Development and Global Governance, chapter 5, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    16. 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.).
    17. Mette Ersbak Bang Nielsen, 2006. "The endogenous formation of sustanaible trade agreements," Revista de Economía del Rosario, Universidad del Rosario, June.
    18. 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.
    19. Anna Maria Mayda & Chad Steinberg, 2009. "Do South-South trade agreements increase trade? Commodity-level evidence from COMESA," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 42(4), pages 1361-1389, November.
    20. Costas Hadjiyiannis, 2004. "Common markets and trade liberalization," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 37(2), pages 484-508, May.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    competitive liberalization Regionalism Multilateralism;

    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.