Dynamics and Politics in Regional Integration Arrangements
探讨发展中国家参与区域贸易协定的原因与后果，指出相关讨论缺乏清晰的分析模型和实证证据，并介绍世界银行针对区域主义新方面的研究项目。
Overwhelming evidence links openness and economic growth. In recent years many developing countries have attempted to liberalize their trade and investment regimes, mostly through autonomous unilateral liberalization. At the same time, a growing number of governments have begun to explore and participate in regional trading agreements. The agreements grant reciprocal trade preferences to participating countries, resulting in discrimination against nonmembers. The causes and consequences of regional integration have given rise to an extensive and vigorous debate among both scholars and policymakers. However, the quality of this debate has been seriously hampered by the absence of clear analytical models and empirical evidence on many of the factors under discussion. Few of the recent arguments in favor of regional integration arrangements have been satisfactorily formalized or tested. To address some of these issues, a World Bank research program focuses on new and developing country aspects of regionalism...