Bilateral Treaties and The Most-Favored-Nation Clause: The Myth of Trade Liberalization in the Nineteenth Century

2008 ◽  
Vol 60 (2) ◽  
pp. 147-188 ◽  
Author(s):  
Olivier Accominotti ◽  
Marc Flandreau
Keyword(s):  
International Trade ◽  
Trade Liberalization ◽  
Empirical Evidence ◽  
Trade Agreement ◽  
Trade Agreements ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Most Favored Nation ◽  
The World ◽  
Most Favored Nation Clause ◽  
Bilateral Treaties

Textbook accounts of the Anglo-French trade agreement of 1860 argue that it heralded the beginning of a liberal trading order. This alleged success holds much interest from a modern policy point of view, for it rested on bilateral negotiations and most-favored-nation clauses. With the help of new data on international trade (the RICardo database), the authors provide empirical evidence and find that the treaty and subsequent network of MFN trade agreements coincided with the end of a period of unilateral liberalization across the world. They also find that it did not contribute to expanding trade at all. This is contrary to a deeply rooted belief among economists, economic historians, and political scientists. The authors draw a number of policy lessons that run counter to the conventional wisdom and raise skepticism toward the ability of bilateralism and MFN arrangements to promote trade liberalization.

Globalization of Regionalism: Challenges and Risks for Russia

2015 ◽  
pp. 5-13
Author(s):  
V. Obolenskiy
Keyword(s):  
International Trade ◽  
Regional Integration ◽  
Level Structure ◽  
Positive Influence ◽  
Most Favored Nation ◽  
Negative Effects ◽  
Multilateral Trade ◽  
The World ◽  
World Economic ◽  
Trade And Investment

TЕhe article deals with the intensive development of the process of regionalization of the world trade and analyzes grounds for this process. It traces the evolution of regional trade agreements which account for the constant growth of mutual deliveries. The author pays attention to the transformation of regionalism which acquires step by step transcontinental character. The article states that the regional integration apart from the positive influence on trade and investment flow also has negative effects, namely erosion of the regime of most-favored-nation treatment and threats of the beginning of chaos in the international trade and investment exchange. The author studies projects of the creation of global superblocks of the integration type – Transatlantic, Eastern Asiatic, Asiatic -Pacific. In author’s opinion, their emergence will lead to radical changes of the institutional configuration of the world economic space which will turn into a two-level structure. On the first level rules of the multilateral trade system (WTO) will be applied. On the second level principles and regulations fixed by global multilateral trade and economic agreements with participation of all leaders of the international trade will act. The author concludes that Russia has to choose optimal direction of its participation in the global economic. Correspondingly, attention is paid to the problems and risks inherent in its connection with transcontinental trade and economic agreements which are objects of multilateral negotiations at the present time. In particular, the author states that in case of establishment of “mild” forms of integration in the Asiatic -Pacific or European directions Russia will have to open – completely or to a great extent – its domestic market for goods from the countries of the regions mentioned. The losses caused by such a disclosure might outweigh the benefits from liberalization of the access to the markets of partner countries.

scholarly journals Trade Agreements, Competition, and the Environment: Gridlock at the Crossroads

1994 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 97-107 ◽  
Author(s):  
James L. Seale ◽  
Gary F. Fairchild
Keyword(s):  
International Trade ◽  
Natural Resources ◽  
World Economy ◽  
Uruguay Round ◽  
Task Force ◽  
Trade Agreements ◽  
Southern Region ◽  
Agricultural Commodities ◽  
Trade And The Environment ◽  
The World

In the 1980s, few agricultural economists, particularly from the Southern Region, published works on international trade or the globalization of the world economy. The initiation of the Uruguay Round of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) in 1986 stimulated such writings as the Southern Agriculture in a World Economy series by the Southern Region Extension International Trade Task Force (Rosson et al.). An even smaller number of agricultural economists were writing on policy linkages between trade and the environment. An early effort to remedy this situation was the Workshop on Linkages between Natural Resources and International Trade in Agricultural Commodities (Sutton).

The Most-Favored-Nation Policy in Relation to Trade Agreements

1939 ◽  
Vol 33 (3) ◽  
pp. 411-423
Author(s):  
Francis B. Sayre
Keyword(s):  
Trade Agreements ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Other ◽  
Trade Barriers ◽  
Most Favored Nation ◽  
Economic Stability ◽  
Foreign Markets ◽  
The World ◽  
Political Advantage ◽  
The One

The virulent disease which has been attacking and crippling international trade, particularly since 1929, has manifested itself in two different forms. The one is mounting trade barriers, which tend to fence off nation from nation and thus effectively to check the flow of world trade. The other is the practice of discrimination, which nations are using in increasing degree to force markets out of the hands of their competitors or to gain political advantage of one kind or another. If economic stability is to be won and the peace of the world to be made secure, it is just as necessary to overcome the one as the other.The Trade Agreements Act was passed by Congress for the purpose “of expanding foreign markets for the products of the United States.” It is clear that the accomplishment of this purpose necessitates a program with a two-fold objective. The program must seek, first, the reduction or elimination of excessive trade barriers; and second, the elimination of trade discriminations.

scholarly journals International trade agreements and bargaining

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chuyi Fang
Keyword(s):  
International Trade ◽  
Real World ◽  
Trade Agreements ◽  
Welfare Effects ◽  
Bargaining Model ◽  
Voting Rules ◽  
Bargaining Process ◽  
Dynamic Mechanism Design ◽  
International Trade Agreements ◽  
The World

In this dissertation, I provide a compelling explanation about why the World Trade Organization (WTO) permits retaliation only after a lengthy delay. I then explain why it usually rejects requests for retaliation (or a reciprocal withdrawal of concessions) in other related inter- national agreements. Next, I consider a more general problem about agents negotiating over an allocation of some surplus. This multilateral bargaining model could be applied to international trade or many real-world negotiations. I begin by taking a dynamic mechanism design approach and analyze the welfare effects among same-sector retaliation with and without delay as well as cross-sector retaliation with and without delay. I show that a retaliation with delay mechanism generates higher welfare and supports a higher self-enforcing level of cooperation than does a retaliation without delay mechanism. I demonstrate that under certain conditions, a same-sector retaliation mechanism generates higher welfare and supports a higher self-enforcing level of cooperation than does a cross-sector retaliation mechanism. All the above results are showing to hold for several different stochastic process of how a state of the world evolves. I then consider a more general case of bargaining where the size of the surplus is endogenized. In my model of the first two chapters after the introduction, although the size of the surplus varies across time, it still evolves in a stochastic manner. In many real-world negotiations, however, a surplus is usually created by players and each player may have certain power to influence a recognition process. Hence, my main innovation in the last chapter is to allow a surplus as well as recognition probabilities to be endogenously determined by players' actions. I assume that players' actions can have either persistent or transitory effects on a bargaining process. I compare the equilibrium outcomes under different voting rules and show that when a competition becomes less intensive (i.e., a proposal needs the consents of more players), it raises social welfare while it makes a free-ride problem more severe.

A WTO Ruling Matters: Citizens’ Support for the Government’s Compliance with Trade Agreements

2019 ◽  
Vol 25 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Naoko Matsumura
Keyword(s):  
Public Opinion ◽  
World Trade Organization ◽  
Empirical Evidence ◽  
World Trade ◽  
Trade Agreements ◽  
Survey Experiment ◽  
Trade Dispute ◽  
The World ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Wto Agreements

AbstractAn international court’s ruling is expected to influence public opinion because of the perception of its legality and the subsequent costs of noncompliance. However, there has been little direct empirical evidence to support this claim. To close this lacuna, I conducted a survey experiment to examine the power of a court’s ruling in the context of a trade dispute. The experiment shows that citizens become less supportive of their government’s noncompliance with GATT/WTO agreements when the World Trade Organization issues an adverse ruling, compared to when their government is verbally accused of a violation of the same agreements by a foreign country. However, the experiment also finds that the impact of a ruling is conditional upon the level of compliance of the winner of the dispute.

The challenges of federalism to Canada’s international trade relations: The Canada–European Union Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement

2017 ◽  
Vol 72 (1) ◽  
pp. 111-119
Author(s):  
Ali Tejpar
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
International Trade ◽  
Trade Agreement ◽  
Trade Agreements ◽  
International Trade Agreements ◽  
Implementation Processes ◽  
Trade Relations ◽  
International Model ◽  
Canadian Federalism ◽  
Canadian Context

As one of the first “second-generation” free trade agreements that address indirect and non-tariff barriers, the Canada–European Union Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) is likely to serve as an international model. CETA, however, highlights significant challenges for Canadian federalism in both the negotiation and implementation processes of this and any such future trade agreements. While the inclusion of sub-federal governments allows for provinces/territories to help shape the provisions that fall within their jurisdictions, this paper argues that subsequent challenges arise in conveying a unified Canadian commitment to implement the agreement. Overall, the CETA negotiations demonstrated the significant institutional weaknesses of current federal–provincial/territorial relations with respect to international trade agreements. In the Canadian context, this suggests a need for “summit federalism” to ensure that all federal–provincial/territorial governments align their terms and interests and convey a unified commitment to fulfilling Canada’s current and future international trade agreements.

Impact of the Multi-Fibre Arrangement (MFA) Phase-Out on the Garment Workers of the World

2003 ◽  
Vol 28 (1) ◽  
pp. 65-74
Author(s):  
Lalit Mohan Kathuria
Keyword(s):  
Developing Countries ◽  
International Trade ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Garment Workers ◽  
The World ◽  
Textiles And Clothing ◽  
The Cost ◽  
Phase Out ◽  
North And South ◽  
Conditions Of Work

“The Multi-Fibre arrangement (MFA) dealing with international trade in clothing and textiles, is being phased out to be in line with WTO rules. This phase out is being seen as favouring developing countries and only criticism focuses on the European countries and USA who are holding up the process. However, if we look at from the point of view of workers rather than countries, a different picture emerges. For workers East and West, North and South this means constant insecurity and deteriorating conditions of work. The Agreement on Textiles and Clothing (ATC) could thus become another mechanism through which companies are able to use the agenda of trade at the cost of workers.”

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document