THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF REGIONALISM IN WORLD TRADE : IS IT COMPATIBLE WITH MULTILATERALISM?

Year 1997, Volume: 5 Issue: 1&2, 21 - 60, 29.12.1997

M. Sait Akman Muzaffer Dartan

https://doi.org/10.29228/mjes.320

Abstract

Regional trading arrangements (RTAs) became popular in the last decade
while the trade negotiations of the Uruguay Round continued under the multilateral
track of GATT. This Article reopens a discussion that has divided both economists
and policy makers as to whether the trend towards "regionalismn in world trade helps
to move the process of multilateral trade liberalization forward or leads to more protectionist
preferential/discriminatory practices, thereby undermining the multilateral
approach of GATT. The authors, in this study, assess the fallacious view that
equates regional freeing of trade with "free traden itself and advocate a ''public
choicen approach arguing that whatever the motivations are for the regionalism, they
may, on the other hand, give rise to abuse by domestic interest groups for protectionist
purposes and therefore endanger the liberalization of the world trading system.

Keywords

THE POLITICAL ECONOM, REGIONALISM, MULTILATERALISM

References

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