Trade unions’ legitimacy is rooted in membership, since unions result from the organization of workers who found they were stronger through a collective voice. Accordingly, union representativeness has been assessed primarily ‘density’ – ratio members to total workforce. We argue that density crucial but insufficient. First, decline trade membership jeopardizes internal legitimacy; second, have...

South African trade policy has exerted a major influence on the composition and aggregate growth of trade. In the Apartheid period, trade protection seriously impeded both exports and imports, and the economy depended on favorable global commodity price trends to avoid running into an external constraint. South Africa developed a comparative advantage in capital-intensive primary and manufactur...

I study a dynamic process of trading-bloc formation in an n-country international trade model of imperfect competition. Countries differ in their industrialization levels and market sizes. In this model, both the formation of trading-blocs and countries’ external tariffs are endogenously determined. The impacts of free trade areas (FTAs) and customs unions (CUs) on trade liberalization are eval...

We present a theory of why some countries negotiate trade agreements during economic downturns. We argue that political leaders can gain from such agreements because of the signals they send to their publics. Publics are less likely to blame leaders for bad economic conditions when they have implemented sound economic policies, such as signing and implementing agreements designed to liberalize ...