The gravity model has been extensively used in international trade research for the last 40 years because of its considerable empirical robustness and explanatory power. Since their introduction in the 1960’s, gravity models have been used for assessing trade policy implications and, particularly recently, for analyzing the effects of Free Trade Agreements on international trade. The objective ...

Preferential trade agreements (PTAs) have become an increasingly prominent feature of the international trade environment, with salient examples being the widening and deepening of the European Union (EU), the success of the Mercosur, and the formation of the North American Free Trade Association (NAFTA). In fact, a majority of the active agreements notified to gatt through 1995 were signed in ...

This paper investigates the link between domestic income inequality and international trade using a dynamic model of occupational choice. After showing how systematic patterns of comparative advantage arise among countries with no di®erences in their economic fundamentals, I provide two results regarding trade liberalization describing the full transition dynamics. First, international income d...

AIB Insights Vol. 16, No. 1 ConCerns ThaT inTernaTional invesTmenT agreements (IIAs) impact a government’s right to regulate and lead to “regulatory chill” have once again surfaced in the wake of the negotiations on the Pacific Rim’s Transpacific Partnership (TTP) and the US-EU Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP). These concerns are not new and have persisted since NAFTA Chapt...

We evaluate the prospect of forming voluntary global warming agreements in which membership entitles a country to trade emission permits with other member states. To do so, we construct a calibrated general equilibriummodel that jointly describes the world economy and the strategic incentives that guide the design of national abatement policies. Countries choose their initial permit endowments ...

Prospective studies of the potential health consequences of trade and investment treaties, such as the Trans-Pacific Partnership, are critical. These studies can make visible to trade policy-makers the potential negative impacts associated to such treaties and can influence the outcomes of such negotiations. However, few researchers have examined retrospectively the consequences of trade agreem...

Countries, such as France, Spain. China. India. Korea and satellite nations of the former Soviet Union have been cultivating industrial hemp for years. A 1961 United Nations Single Convention Treaty specifically allows cultivation of cannabis for industrial purposes. and the more recent NAFTA and GATT international trade agreements recognize hemp as a valid agricultural crop. These internationa...

The existing economics literature on international trade agreements focuses tariff covering in goods and explains core features of the General Agreement Tariffs Trade (GA...