Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-7cvxr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-23T17:33:12.821Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Content of Preferential Trade Agreements

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 May 2018

CLAUDIA HOFMANN ,
ALBERTO OSNAGO  and
MICHELE RUTA
CLAUDIA HOFMANN
Affiliation:
Former advisor Batalla Abogados, Costa Rica
ALBERTO OSNAGO*
Affiliation:
World Trade Organization, Switzerland
MICHELE RUTA
Affiliation:
The World Bank, USA
*
*Email: [email protected].
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Preferential trade agreements are an important feature of the global trade system. Several questions, ranging from the rationale for preferential arrangements to their impact on members, non-members and the broader multilateral trade system, are at the forefront of academic and policy debates in trade policy. This paper presents a new database that offers a detailed assessment of the content of preferential arrangements, examining the coverage and legal enforceability of provisions regulating a large set of policy areas. The database provides information on 279 agreements signed by 189 countries between 1958 and 2015. The analysis of the data confirms one of the key insights in the literature: preferential trade agreements are becoming deeper over time. A growing number of these treaties regulate an extended set of policies, frequently with legally enforceable provisions, in areas under the current World Trade Organization mandate and in areas outside the current World Trade Organization mandate, especially competition policy, investment, movements of capital, and intellectual property rights protection. Accounting for the changing scope of preferential trade agreements is essential to gain a more complete and accurate understanding of where the global trading system is going and how its governance can be improved.

Type
Review Article
Information
World Trade Review , Volume 18 , Issue 3 , July 2019 , pp. 365 - 398
Copyright
Copyright © Claudia Hofmann et al. 2018 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

An extended version of this paper was circulated as Hofmann et al. (2017) with the title ‘Horizontal Depth: A New Database on the Content of Preferential Trade Agreements’. We are grateful to our legal consultants on this project, the law firm Batalla, and particularly Priscilla Ortiz for the excellent work in coding the preferential trade agreements. We would like to thank two anonymous referees, Rohini Acharya, Ana Cristina Molina, Alen Mulabdic, Robert Teh, Alan Winters (the Editor), and seminar participants at Stanford University, the World Bank, and EIEF (Rome) for comments on an earlier draft. Errors and omissions are our responsibility only.

References

Acharya, R. (2016), Regional Trade Agreements and the Multilateral Trading System, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Allee, T., Elsig, M., and Lugg, A. (2017), ‘Is the European Union Trade Deal with Canada New or Recycled? A Text-as-Data Approach’, Global Policy, 8(2): 246–252.Google Scholar
Allee, T. and Elsig, M. (2016), ‘Why Do Some International Institutions Contain Strong Dispute Settlement Provisions? New Evidence from Preferential Trade Agreements’, Review of International Organizations, 11(1): 89–120.Google Scholar
Alschner, W., Seiermann, J., and Skougarevskiy, D. (2017), ‘Text-as-Data Analysis of Preferential Trade Agreements: Mapping the PTA Landscape’, UNCTAD Research Paper No. 5, UNCTAD/SER.RP/2017/5.Google Scholar
Baldwin, R. (2008), ‘Big-Think Regionalism: A Critical Survey’, NBER Working Paper 14056, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.Google Scholar
Baldwin, R. and Low, P. (eds.) (2009), Multilateralizing Regionalism: Challenges for the Global Trading System, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Chase, C., Yanovich, A., Crawford, J.-A., and Ugaz, P. (2013), ‘Mapping of Dispute Settlement Mechanisms in Regional Trade Agreements – Innovative or Variations on a Theme?’, WTO Staff Working Paper (ERSD-2013-07).Google Scholar
Damuri, Y. R. (2012), ‘21st Century Regionalism and Production Sharing Practice’, Center for Trade and Economic Integration Working Paper No. CTEI-2012-4.Google Scholar
Dür, A., Baccini, L., and Elsig, M. (2014), ‘The Design of International Trade Agreements: Introducing a New Dataset’, The Review of International Organizations, 9(3): 353–375.Google Scholar
Freund, C. and Ornelas, E. (2010), ‘Regional Trade Agreements’, Annual Review of Economics, 2(1): 139–166.Google Scholar
Horn, H., Mavroidis, P. C., and Sapir, A. (2010), ‘Beyond the WTO? An Anatomy of EU and US Preferential Trade Agreements’, The World Economy, 33: 1565–1588.Google Scholar
Hofmann, C., Osnago, A., and Ruta, M. (2017), ‘Horizontal Depth: A New Database on the Content of Preferential Trade Agreements’, Policy Research Working Paper No. WPS 7981, World Bank, Washington, DC.Google Scholar
Kleimann, D. (2014), ‘Beyond Market Access?: The Anatomy of ASEAN's Preferential Trade Agreements’, Journal of World Trade, 48(3): 629–682.Google Scholar
Kohl, T., Brakman, S., and Garretsen, H. (2016), ‘Do Trade Agreements Stimulate International Trade Differently? Evidence from 296 Trade Agreements’, The World Economy, 39(1): 97–131.Google Scholar
Koremenos, B. and Betz, T. (2012), ‘The Design of Dispute Settlement Procedures in International Agreements’, in Dunoff, J. and Pollack, M. (eds.), Interdisciplinary Perspectives on International Law and International Relations, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 371–393.Google Scholar
Limao, N. (2016), ‘Preferential Trade Agreements’, in Bagwell, K. and Staiger, R. (eds.), Handbook of Commercial Policy, vol. 1, The Netherlands: Elsevier, pp. 279–367.Google Scholar
Mattoo, A., Mulabdic, A., and Ruta, M. (2017), ‘Trade Creation and Trade Diversion in Deep Agreements’, Policy Research Working Paper No. 8206, World Bank, Washington, DC.Google Scholar
Orefice, G. and Rocha, R. (2014), ‘Deep Integration and Production Networks: An Empirical Analysis’, The World Economy, 37(1), 106–136.Google Scholar
Osnago, A., Rocha, N., and Ruta, M. (2017), ‘Do Deep Trade Agreements Boost Vertical FDI?’, World Bank Economic Review, 30(1): 119–125.Google Scholar
Osnago, A., Rocha, N., and Ruta, M. (2018a), ‘Deep Trade Agreements and Global Value Chains’, mimeo, World Bank, Washington, DC.Google Scholar
Osnago, A., Rocha, N., and Ruta, M. (2018b), ‘Deep Trade Agreements and Vertical FDI: The Devil is in the Details’, Canadian Journal of Economics (forthcoming).Google Scholar
Villalta Puig, G. and Dalke, E. D. (2016), ‘Nature and Enforceability of WTO-plus SPS and TBT Provisions in Canada's PTAs: From NAFTA to CETA’, World Trade Review, 15: 51–83, at pp. 52–53.Google Scholar
WTO (2011), ‘The WTO and Preferential Trade Agreements: From Co-Existence to Coherence’, World Trade Report 2011, www.wto.org/english/res_e/publications_e/wtr11_e.htm.Google Scholar