Author

Trupkin, Danilo

Editor

Universidad de Montevideo, Facultad de Ciencias Empresariales y Economía, Departamento de Economía

Date

2010

Extensión

24 p.

Abstract

The big picture issue this paper intends to address is on the incentive aspects of a multilateral trade liberalization. The paper builds on a framework originally introduced in Grossman and Helpman’s The Politics of Free-Trade Agreements (1995). The aim of that work was to explain the viability of free trade agreements (FTAs) between two countries in a political-economy framework. A simple extension to a three-country setting allows us to analyze whether FTAs are “building blocs” or “stumbling blocs”. An illustration with specific functional forms serves to find conditions under which FTAs are, somehow, partial building blocs, i.e., a bilateral liberalization can be feasible when multilateral liberalization is not.

Palabras claves

International Trade Free-Trade Agreements Multilateral Trade Agreement Political-Economy

Tipo

Documento de trabajo

Derechos

Abierto

Versión

Publicada

En

Documentos de trabajo del Departamento de Economía; UM_CEE_2010_02

Collections

• Documentos de trabajo [66]