Notes on Argentina’s Bilateral, Compensatory Trade Agreements

Implications of bilateral free trade agreements on access to medicines.

The TRIPS Agreement of the World Trade Organization (WTO) mandated the introduction of protection of intellectual property rights, notably patents, for pharmaceutical products. While the implications for the access to medicines contained in the terms of this Agreement raised significant concerns, a recent new wave of free trade agreements, negotiated outside the WTO, requires even higher levels...

Bilateral Free Trade Agreements – How do Countries Choose Partners?

While the debate on whether countries should or should not sign trade agreements with selected partners continues, governments have significantly stepped up the rate at which they enter into such agreements. A number of such agreements have been signed lately and many more are under negotiation. Multinational firms get impacted by these agreements irrespective of whether these are beneficial to...

Regional Trade Agreements: Effects on Trade

positive or negative effects on trade depending on their design and implementation. Analysis in this chapter confirms that gains from a preferential trade agreement cannot be taken for granted; moreover, even in agreements with positive impacts on average incomes, not all members are assured of increases. The interesting policy question then is not whether RTAs are categorically good or bad, bu...

On Subsidies in Trade Agreements∗

The role of production subsidies in trade agreements has long been neglected by trade economists. To fill this gap, Bagwell and Staiger (2006) analyze this issue and show that, quite generally, the sole variable efficient trade agreements need to address is market access and that, moreover, the de facto prohibition of subsidies by prevailing WTO legislation is inefficient. The present paper sho...

Preferential Trade Agreements