IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/zbw/gigawp/51.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Potential of Regional Integration Agreements (RIAs) in Enhancing the Credibility of Reform: The Case of the Syrian-European Association Agreement

Author

Listed:
  • Zorob, Anja

Abstract

The effect of 'locking-in' economic reform and enhancing its credibility is generally regarded as one of the most important potential effects of regional integration. Based on a detailed review of the theoretical debate, this paper develops a general framework for assessment to evaluate the ability of RIAs to serve as effective mechanisms for 'commitment' and 'signalling'. In the second part, this assessment framework is applied to the case of the Syrian-European Association Agreement (AA). Syria initialled an AA with the European Union in October 2004, but two and a half years later, this agreement is still pending formal signature. The empirical findings of this study show that despite several shortcomings, the Syrian-European AA, if it were to come into force, should be able to deliver an appropriate mechanism for signalling and commitment and thus to improve the credibility of the Syrian process of reform at home and abroad. A major loophole of the agreement, however, is represented by its lack of incentives to increase the 'rewards for good policy'.

Suggested Citation

  • Zorob, Anja, 2007. "The Potential of Regional Integration Agreements (RIAs) in Enhancing the Credibility of Reform: The Case of the Syrian-European Association Agreement," GIGA Working Papers 51, GIGA German Institute of Global and Area Studies.
    • Handle: RePEc:zbw:gigawp:51
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/47787/1/593229088.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. International Monetary Fund, 2006. "Syrian Arab Republic: Selected Issues," IMF Staff Country Reports 2006/295, International Monetary Fund.
    2. Maurice Schiff & L. Alan Winters, 2003. "Regional Integration and Development," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 15172.
    3. Fernandez, Raquel & Portes, Jonathan, 1998. "Returns to Regionalism: An Analysis of Nontraditional Gains from Regional Trade Agreements," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 12(2), pages 197-220, May.
    4. Dani Rodrik, 1989. "Credibility of Trade Reform — a Policy Maker's Guide," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 12(1), pages 1-16, March.
    5. 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, January.
    6. Giandomenico Majone, 2001. "Nonmajoritarian Institutions and the Limits of Democratic Governance: A Political Transaction-Cost Approach," Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics (JITE), Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen, vol. 157(1), pages 57-78, March.
    7. Unknown, 2005. "Forward," 2005 Conference: Slovenia in the EU - Challenges for Agriculture, Food Science and Rural Affairs, November 10-11, 2005, Moravske Toplice, Slovenia 183804, Slovenian Association of Agricultural Economists (DAES).
    8. Mr. Henri C. Ghesquière, 1998. "Impact of European Union Assocation Agreements on Mediterranean Countries," IMF Working Papers 1998/116, International Monetary Fund.
    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. Vlatka Bilas & Sanja Franc, 2011. "Liberalization Among Developing Countries," Book Chapters, in: Stefan Bogdan Salej & Dejan Eric & Srdjan Redzepagic & Ivan Stosic (ed.), Contemporary Issues in the Integration Processes of Western Balkan Countries in the European Union, chapter 10, pages 141-155, Institute of Economic Sciences.

    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. Leonardo Baccini, 2010. "Explaining formation and design of EU trade agreements: The role of transparency and flexibility," European Union Politics, , vol. 11(2), pages 195-217, June.
    2. Baccini, Leonardo, 2010. "Explaining formation and design of EU trade agreements: the role of transparency and flexibility," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 45565, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    3. Husam Rjoub & Mehmet Aga & Ahmad Abu Alrub & Murad Bein, 2017. "Financial Reforms and Determinants of FDI: Evidence from Landlocked Countries in Sub-Saharan Africa," Economies, MDPI, vol. 5(1), pages 1-12, January.
    4. 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.
    5. Vicard, Vincent, 2012. "Trade, conflict, and political integration: Explaining the heterogeneity of regional trade agreements," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 56(1), pages 54-71.
    6. Manger, Mark, 2008. "International Investment Agreements and Services Markets: Locking in Market Failure?," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 36(11), pages 2456-2469, November.
    7. Bartels, Frank L. & Napolitano, Francesco & Tissi, Nicola E., 2014. "FDI in Sub-Saharan Africa: A longitudinal perspective on location-specific factors (2003–2010)," International Business Review, Elsevier, vol. 23(3), pages 516-529.
    8. Jaime DE MELO & Marcelo OLARREAGA, 2017. "Trade Related Institutions and Development," Working Papers P199, FERDI.
    9. Maur, Jean-Christophe, 2008. "Regionalism and trade facilitation : a primer," Policy Research Working Paper Series 4464, The World Bank.
    10. Frank L. BARTELS & Markus EICHER & Christopher BACHTROG & Gorazd REZONJA, 2009. "Foreign Direct Investment In Sub‐Saharan Africa: Changing Location‐Specific Advantages As Signals Of Competitiveness," The Developing Economies, Institute of Developing Economies, vol. 47(3), pages 244-278, September.
    11. Adama BAH & Sampawende Jules TAPSOBA, 2010. "Civil Conflicts and Regional Economic Integration Outcomes in Africa," Working Papers 201009, CERDI.
    12. Pilar Lopez-Llompart & G. Mathias Kondolf, 2016. "Encroachments in floodways of the Mississippi River and Tributaries Project," Natural Hazards: Journal of the International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, Springer;International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, vol. 81(1), pages 513-542, March.
    13. Michelle Sheran Sylvester, 2007. "The Career and Family Choices of Women: A Dynamic Analysis of Labor Force Participation, Schooling, Marriage and Fertility Decisions," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 10(3), pages 367-399, July.
    14. DAVID M. BLAU & WILBERT van der KLAAUW, 2013. "What Determines Family Structure?," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 51(1), pages 579-604, January.
    15. Afanasyev, Dmitriy O. & Fedorova, Elena A. & Popov, Viktor U., 2015. "Fine structure of the price–demand relationship in the electricity market: Multi-scale correlation analysis," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 215-226.
    16. Peter Viggo Jakobsen, 2009. "Small States, Big Influence: The Overlooked Nordic Influence on the Civilian ESDP," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 47(1), pages 81-102, January.
    17. Billio, Monica & Casarin, Roberto & Osuntuyi, Anthony, 2016. "Efficient Gibbs sampling for Markov switching GARCH models," Computational Statistics & Data Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 100(C), pages 37-57.
    18. Jan Babecký & Fabrizio Coricelli & Roman Horváth, 2009. "Assessing Inflation Persistence: Micro Evidence on an Inflation Targeting Economy," Czech Journal of Economics and Finance (Finance a uver), Charles University Prague, Faculty of Social Sciences, vol. 59(2), pages 102-127, June.
    19. Lloyd, S. P., 2017. "Unconventional Monetary Policy and the Interest Rate Channel: Signalling and Portfolio Rebalancing," Cambridge Working Papers in Economics 1735, Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge.
    20. Roy Gava, 2022. "Challenging the regulators: Enforcement and appeals in financial regulation," Regulation & Governance, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 16(4), pages 1265-1282, October.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Regional integration; Credibility; Commitment; Signalling; European Mediterranean Partnership; Syria;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • F15 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Economic Integration

    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:zbw:gigawp:51. 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: ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/dueiide.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.