Trade Cooperation The Purpose, Design and Effects of Preferential Trade Agreements

Preferential trade agreements (PTAs) have been proliferating for more than two decades, with the negotiations for a Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership and a Trans-Pacific Partnership being just the tip of the iceberg. This volume addresses some of the most pressing issues related to the surge of these agreements. It includes chapters written by leading political scientists, economists and lawyers which theoretically and empirically advance our understanding of trade agreements. The key theme is that PTAs vary widely in terms of design. The authors provide explanations as to why we see these differences in design and whether and how these differences matter in practice. The tools for understanding the purposes and effects of PTAs that are offered will guide future research and inform practitioners and trade policy experts about progress in the scientific enquiry into PTAs.

1. Introduction: the purpose, design and effects of preferential trade agreements Andreas Dür and Manfred Elsig; Part I. Why Do Countries Sign PTAs?: 2. Technology, politics and economic exchanges: historical patterns in international economic agreements Moonhawk Kim; 3. The political economy of preferential trade agreements Edward D. Mansfield and Helen V. Milner; 4. Weak governments and preferential trade agreements Jean-Louis Arcand, Marcelo Olarreaga and Laura Zoratto; 5. Natural trading partners? A public opinion perspective on preferential trade agreements Víctor Umaña, Thomas Bernauer and Gabriele Spilker; 6. Regionalisation in search of regionalism: production networks and deep integration commitments in Asia's PTAs Soo Yeon Kim; Part II. The Design of PTAs: 7. Imitation and innovation in international governance: the diffusion of trade agreement design Leonardo Baccini, Andreas Dür and Yoram Z. Haftel; 8. PTA design, tariffs, and intra-industry trade Mark Manger; 9. PTAs and audiovisual services Kerry A. Chase; 10. Competition policy and free trade: antitrust provisions in PTAs Anu Bradford and Tim Büthe; 11. PTAs and public procurement Stephanie J. Rickard; 12. Trade agreements, violent conflict and security Yoram Z. Haftel; 13. Dispute settlement provisions in PTAs: new data and new concepts Todd Allee and Manfred Elsig; Part III. The Effects of PTAs: 14. Preliminary examination of heterogeneous effects on international trade of economic integration agreements Scott L. Baier, Jeffrey H. Bergstrand and Matthew W. Clance; 15. Effects of deep versus shallow trade agreements in general equilibrium Peter Egger and Sergey Nigai; 16. Revisiting the trade effects of services agreements Anirudh Shingal; 17. Trade agreements as protection from risk Jeffrey Kucik; 18. What do we know about preferential trade agreements and temporary trade barriers? Chad P. Bown, Baybars Karacaovali and Patricia Tovar; Part IV. PTAs and the Multilateral Trading System: 19. The dialectical relationship of preferential and multilateral trade agreements Thomas Cottier, Charlotte Sieber-Gasser and Gabriela Wermelinger; 20. Forget about the WTO: the network of relations between PTAs and 'double PTAs' Joost Pauwelyn and Wolfgang Alschner; 21. Plurilateral agreements, variable geometry and the WTO Bernard Hoekman; 22. Referring PTA disputes to the WTO dispute settlement system James Flett.

Andreas Dür is Professor of International Politics at Universität Salzburg. His research interests include trade policy, international institutions and interest group politics.
Manfred Elsig is Associate Professor of International Relations and Deputy Managing Director of the World Trade Institute, Universität Bern, Switzerland. He is also the Director of the National Centre of Competence in Research (NCCR) on Trade Regulation.