Trading Blocs
Subtitle: Alternative Approaches to Analyzing Preferential Trade Agreements
Contributors: Jagdish Bhagwati (Editor); Pravin Krishna (Editor); Arvind Panagariya (Editor)
Publisher: The MIT Press
Published: March 19, 1999
Language: eng
Format: Hardcover
Number of pages: 609
ISBN-13: 9780262024501
Subjects: Trade agreements & tariffs; International Economic Relations; Trade Agreements; Business & Economics; Business / Economics / Finance; Business/Economics; Economics - General; Exports & Imports; International - General; Business & Economics / Economics / General; Commercial policy; Trade blocs
Description: The recent proliferation of free trade areas and customs unions in the world trading system has led to an explosive revival of interest in the economic analysis of Preferential Trade Arrangements (PTAs). The principal theoretical question of the 1950s and 1960s (Viner) was whether PTAs would create or divert trade, causing welfare improvement or loss.

The principal theoretical question (Bhagwati) of the late 1980s and 1990s has been whether PTAs encourage or discourage the worldwide nondiscriminatory freeing of trade. The essays in this volume present the central contributions to the analytical approaches developed to examine these questions.