Abstract Almost all participants in free trade agreements (FTAs) exclude at least a few products or sectors from complete tariff removal on the exports of their FTA partners. The positive tariffs that remain within an are often highest countries apply MFN basis. It seems plausible such exclusions may be chosen because domestic producers these viewed as especially vulnerable to competition impor...

Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) usually come with restrictions on the use of intermediate inputs in order for final goods to qualify for free trade. I focus on Rules of Origin (RoO), which limit expenses on nonmember country’s intermediate inputs. In a three-country FTA formation game, I introduce international trade in intermediate inputs and RoO restrictions. In the case of symmetric countries, ...

This paper compares sequential trade liberalization through a preferential trade agreement (PTA) and one-shot multilateral trade liberalization with respect to the speed with which countries attain multilateral free trade. We build a three-country oligopoly model, including one developing country whose domestic firm initially uses old technology. Firm-level adoption of new technology and countr...