Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

The Economics of Regional Trading Arrangements provides a unified analysis of policies which discriminate among trading partners. Regionalism became a major issue in international commercial diplomacy during the early 1990s. The proliferation of RTAs was viewed by some as a challenge, and by others as a complement, to the establishment of the World Trade Organization as the successor to GATT. This book analyses the new RTAs. It situates them in the broader realm of discriminatory trade polices for which there is a well-defined body of theory and empirical studies, before asking whether the new regionalism requires new theoretical analysis. The approach is to combine in roughly equal proportions history, theory, and a review of empirical studies. This is appropriate given the key theoretical result is the welfare ambiguity of discriminatory trade policy changes. Empirical studies can provide a sense of which of the potentially offsetting effects are more or less important. Since some effects may take a long time to have their full impact and may be systemic, it is also useful to observe how RTAs have evolved in practice.

Table of contents provided by Syndetics

• List of tables
• List of figures
• Abbreviations
• 1 Introduction
• Part I History
• Introduction to Part I
• 2 Evolution of the Most-Favoured Nation Principle up to 1929
• 3 Commercial Policies in the 1930s
• 4 Non-discrimination in the GATT
• 5 Discrimination in International Trade, 1947-1985
• 6 Regionalism versus Multilateralism during the Uruguay Round
• 7 Regionalism and the World Trade Organization
• Part II Theory
• Introduction to Part II
• 8 The Mainstream from Viner to the JCM Proposition
• 9 Extending the Model
• 10 The New Regionalism
• 11 Numbers and Geography
• Part III Empirical Evidence
• Introduction to Part III
• 12 Western European Integration
• 13 North America
• 14 Other Free Trade Areas and Customs Unions
• 15 Trade Preferences for Developing Countries
• 16 Global Issues

Reviews provided by Syndetics

CHOICE Review

Pomfret (Univ. of Adelaide) has written a thorough, balanced, and wide-ranging summary and analysis of regional trading arrangements. In part 1 he describes trading arrangements from the mid-1800s to the mid-1990s. The theoretical principles and models used to assess the economic welfare outcomes of discrimination and nondiscrimination are the subjects of part 2. Part 3 is an intelligent, knowledgeable discussion of empirical investigations of trade discrimination. This section is made more valuable by repeated references to the historical and theoretical information presented previously. Trade policy is a political-economic process, and in part 4 Pomfret offers a concise and savvy commentary on why discriminatory trading arrangements exist and often become diluted over time. The book is a tour de force; the author is a participant as well as an observer of efforts to measure and weigh the causes and consequences of movements away from global free trade. The index and extensive list of references further contribute to the usefulness of the book. Research and professional collections. R. L. Lucier; Denison University

Author notes provided by Syndetics

Richard Pomfret is a Professor of Economics at University of Adelaide.