Regionalism or Multilateralism: Competing Paths for Trade Liberalization
Author: He PingSilver Editor Source: Contemporary Asia Pacific StudiesTime :2014-04-09 14:06:00
Abstract: There are different views among scholars as to whether regional trade arrangements promote or create obstacles for multilateral trade liberalization. One school holds that many states are attracted to bilateral and regional negotiations in order to overcome collective action problems. This tends to distract states from focusing attention on multi-lateral trade negotiations. Various types of preferential trade arrangements tend to discriminate against non-member states, and because protectionist forces within states tend to increasingly push political actors towards supporting regionalism, a “spaghetti bowl effect” results as a proliferation of numerous overlapping multilateral trade institutions emerge. A second school argues that regional trade arrangements are a “natural choice” for all states, and as the scope of such frameworks expand and deepen, they tend to have an increasingly apparent “lock-in effect” on open market policies. Furthermore, the design of GATT and the WTO run parallel with the trend towards regional trade arrangements.This article offers a review of the different perspectives on this “dynamic time-path question”.
