Non-preferential trading clubs

Preferential trading arrangements and industrial location

This paper considers the locational effects of geographically discriminatory trade policy. A preferential move towards a free trade area pulls industry into the integrating countries. Input-output links between imperfectly competitive firms amplify this effect and, when trade barriers fall below some critical level, may lead to agglomeration with some member countries gaining industry at the ex...

Clubs within clubs:

This paper deals with two examples of macro-regions in the EU: the Benelux and the Council of the Baltic Sea States (CBSS). Building on the distinction between “old” and “new” regionalism, it discusses some characteristics of regions in general, and of sub-integration schemes within the EU in particular. These characteristics are applied to the two regions at hand. From this application it foll...

Preferential Trading and Welfare: The Small-Union Case Revisited

The welfare analyses of preferential trading arrangements have been characterized by generally inconclusive and messy results. In this paper, I attempt to give order to the analysis of one important case: a union between two small countries. The analysis has two key advantages over the existing literature. First, the model employed is fully general in that it allows for goods that are exported ...

Quantifying preferential trading in the e-MID interbank market

Assessing Preferential Trading Agreements using the Sussex Framework

Introduction: Over the past fifteen years, there has been a dramatic rise in the number and range of regional or preferential trade agreements (PTAs). 1 There is evidence to suggest that market driven regional trading blocs are emerging in the European neighbourhood, the Americas and East Asia. The US is actively pursuing FTA in the Americas and East and South-East Asia. The European Union (EU)...