Antoni Estevadeordal

Does Regionalism Affect Trade Liberalization toward Non-Members?

We examine the effect of regionalism on unilateral trade liberalization using industry-level data on applied MFN tariffs and bilateral preferences for ten Latin American countries from 1990 to 2001. We find that preferential tariff reduction in a given sector leads to a reduction in the external (MFN) tariff in that sector. External liberalization is greater if preferences are granted to important suppliers. However, these “complementarity effects” of preferential liberalization on external liberalization do not arise in customs unions. Overall, our results suggest that concerns about a negative effect of preferential liberalization on external trade liberalization are unfounded.

Measuring protection in the early twentieth century

Trade policy constitutes one of the most important chapters in any economic history account of the early years of this century. To assess its impact on the economic development of individual countries we need comparative measures of protection at the sectoral level. This paper offers what appears to be the first attempt to construct such measures for 1913 based on the Heckscher-Ohlin trade model. It uses a newly constructed data set on net trade flows and factor endowments covering fourteen ‘old world’ and four ‘new world’ economies. In contrast to previous studies, the measures suggested here are, first, objective in the sense of not attempting to classify a priori the trade regime of some country based only on its tariff legislation. Second, they reflect all types of trade interventions. Third, they are constructed as continuous measures. Finally, and most importantly, they are comparable across countries and sectors.

Regional rules in the global trading system

1. Introduction Antoni Estevadeordal, Kati Suominen and Robert Teh 2. Big-think regionalism: a critical survey Richard Baldwin 3. Market access provisions in regional trade agreements Antoni Estevadeordal, Matthew Shearer and Kati Suominen 4. Trade remedy provisions in regional trade agreements Robert Teh, Thomas J. Prusa and Michele Budetta 5. A mapping of regional rules on technical barriers to trade Roberta Piermartini and Michele Budetta 6. Services liberalization in the new generation of preferential trade agreements (PTAs): how much further than the GATS? Martin Roy, Juan Marchetti and Hoe Lim 7. Mapping investment provisions in regional trade agreements: towards an international investment regime? Barbara Kotschwar 8. Competition provisions in regional trade agreements Robert Teh Appendix.

Rules of Origin in Preferential Trading Arrangements: Is All Well with the Spaghetti Bowl in the Americas?

Preferential trading arrangements (PTAs) have proliferated spectacularly over the past decade around the world. Countries in the Western Hemisphere have been particularly prolific builders of PTAs, forging in a veritable spaghetti bowl of multiple and often overlapping agreements. Rules of origin, a key arbitrator of market access in each of these PTAs, epitomize the hemisphere´s spaghetti bowl problem: a growing number of the region´s PTAs carry complex and restrictive rules of origin, and the many rules-of-origin regimes differ from each other. As a result, rules of origin can undercut the trade-creating potential of the region´s hard-earned PTAs. The purpose of this paper is to present an in-depth diagnosis of rules-of-origin regimes in the Americas, and to offer policy recommendations for the region to counter the potential negative effects of rules of origin.

Introduction - The Sequencing of Regional Economic Integration

© 2008 The Authors Journal compilation

Specialization and Diverging Manufacturing Structures: The Aftermath of Trade Policy Reforms in Developing Countries

Trade barriers have been declining around the world over the last five decades. Countries reduced their tariffs unilaterally as well as concertedly in the framework of regional integration agreements. As a consequence, trade flows among economies have substantially intensified. According to economic theory, this should have had a significant impact on the countries’ specialization patterns. However, to our knowledge, there is no direct robust econometric evidence on the effect of trade policy on the overall degree of countries’ specialization. This paper aims at filling this gap in the literature. We focus on ten Latin American countries members of the LAIA (Latin American Integration Association) over the period 1985-1998. These countries are natural case studies because in the last two decades they implemented road and comprehensive trade liberalization programs, both generally and preferentially, starting from relatively high tariff protection levels. Our econometric results suggest that reducing own MFN tariffs is associated with increasing manufacturing production specialization. Furthermore, we find that preferential trade liberalization and differences in the degree of unilateral openness have resulted in increased dissimilarities in manufacturing production structures across countries. These results are robust to the specialization measure being used, the correction for groupwise heteroscedasticity, cross-sectional correlation, serial correlation and endogeneity biases, and the inclusion of indicators to account for the real exchange misalignment prevailing in the region during the period under examination.

Economic Integration in the Americas: An Unfinished Agenda

While the Doha Round negotiations have been at a standstill, countries have continued to engage in external trade by pursing regional and bilateral trade agreements. In Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC), Mexico and Chile have been leaders in spearheading free trade agreement (FTA) expansion in the region. The drift towards regional trade agreements, sub-regionalism and preferential trade agreements (PTAs) contrasts with the sentiment and momentum from nearly two decades ago. In 1990 (then) US President George H. W. Bush floated the idea of a free trade area that would stretch ‘from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego’, which was later outlined under the vision of the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA). In 1994, the US, Canada, and 32 LAC1 countries hoped to negotiate an all-embracing FTAA by 2005.

El patrón comercial a finales del siglo XIX: un análisis comparativo

espanolEn este ensayo se contrasta para una muestra dr 18 paises hacia 1913 una version estatica de la teoria de Heckscher-Ohlin, en la formulacion de Vanek. La conclusion alcanzada es que si bien el modelo de H-O con competencia perfecta no resulta plenamente explicativo para la segunda posguerra mundial, es muy adecuado, sin embargo, para los anos finales del siglo XIX y primeros del siglo XX. EnglishThis paper will focus on the question: ?does the Heckscher-Ohlin theory adequately account for the major aspects of the trade pattern observed prior to WWI, or are there other influences that mattered? I conclude that although the perfect competition H-O model does not do all that well for the post-world War II period, it is perfectly adequate for the late nineteenth century, the period which motivated Eli F. Heckscher and Bertil Ohlin in the first place.

Revista Integración & Comercio: Año 22: No. 44: Julio, 2018: Algoritmolandia: inteligencia artificial para una integración predictiva e inclusiva de América Latina

De un modo mas o menos consciente, habitamos todos un nuevo planeta: Algoritmolandia. Se trata del espacio ciberfisico en el cual trillones de datos se trasladan a hipervelocidad y son analizados en sistemas crecientemente sofisticados de inteligencia artificial (IA), que mediante algoritmos generan procesos de aprendizajes y autoaprendizaje de un impacto exponencial en la industria, el comercio, los servicios y multiples facetas de nuestra vida comunitaria. A traves del aporte de mas de 40 reconocidos expertos mundiales, se analizan en este informe de INTAL-BID los riesgos y oportunidades de las maquinas inteligentes en areas que tienen alta implicancia para nuestro perfil productivo y de insercion global: desde la posibilidad de predecir negociaciones comerciales, precios de commodities y tendencias de consumo, hasta su desarrollo en fabricas algoritmo, medicina personalizada, educacion expandida, infraestructura prototipada, ecomovilidad autonoma, agricultura de precision, consumo energetico, expedientes judiciales, analisis macroeconomicos y desafios eticos y de equidad social. Estamos en los albores de una tecnologia que se constituye en un nuevo factor de produccion. La inteligencia artificial, guiada por una sabia y renovada vision humanista, puede contribuir a consolidar una Integracion Regional predictiva e inclusiva para todos los latinoamericanos.

Regional Integration in the Americas: State of Play, Lessons, and Ways Forward

The Americas have been a key driver of regional trade agreements (RTAs) since the 1990s. This study considers the effect of these agreements on trade liberalization, and the lessons that this offers for other parts of the world, notably Asia. It finds broad geographical coverage of RTAs in the Americas, and evidence that these agreements have broadened and deepened liberalization. It stresses the importance of looking beyond tariffs on goods, to consider liberalization of services and removal of non-tariff barriers, both for academics assessing the true extent of liberalization, and for policymakers looking to ensure well-functioning RTAs. It suggests that RTAs can encourage broader liberalization in Asia, but some sectors will be resistant to liberalization. Moreover, efforts must be made to harmonize the provisions of RTAs, to avoid costly multiplication of rules and to ensure a web of bilateral deals does not undermine multilateral trade.