This new book highlights the multifaceted effects of regional trade agreements and outlines the strategic options for EU trade policy. It points out what is new about this most recent phase of regionalism and analyzes the effects on economic welfare and trade transaction costs. The authors draw upon elements of game theory to explore a self-reinforcing mechanism that is resulting in a potentially damaging race for markets. They focus in particular on the multiple impacts of regionalism on the WTO and the multilateral trading order. The book arrives at an opportune time, as the Doha Round is reaching a critical phase.

The book deals with the better governance of trade, investment and finance in Asia. It provides readers with clear and broad ideas as to what opportunities and challenges Asia is facing in the governance of trade, investment and finance in the region as well as globally which has so far been almost inexistent both in academia and in practice.

Over the past decade, international economic liberalization has been pursued through both multilateral and regional arrangements. In the Uruguay Round, more than one hundred governments pledged their commitment to greater open trade in goods and services, and established new rules under the enforcement of the World Trade Organization. At the same time, however, many regional arrangements have been negotiated--including the European Union and the North American Free Trade Agreement. Nonetheless, controversy still rages about these arrangements. Are regional arrangements stumbling blocks or, in fact building blocks for a more integrated and successful international economy? In this book, Robert A. Lawrence addresses this question and explains both sides of the debate. A volume of Brookings' Integrating National Economies Series

Since the summer of 2007, the world scenario has been dominated by the US sub-prime mortgage crisis and its repercussions on global financial markets and economic growth. As banks around the world wrote down their losses and governments intervened to rescue domestic financial institutions, financial distress severely hit the real economy leading to what has been widely defined as the worst recession since the 1930s. Under these conditions, along with the immediate concern for stemming the effects of the crisis, policy-makers around the world have been debating the long-term measures that have to be adopted in order to reduce the likelihood of future crises and to ensure stable economic growth. Although this debate has not yet produced significant transformations, it indicates a renewed concern about the institutional architecture that is meant to govern the global economic and financial system. This book tackles the issue of what the governance of the global economic and financial system looks like and what the prospects for its reform are. Specifically, the book will address the following three main themes: Governance: What is governance in the international economic system? What forms does it take? How did it come about? How can we study it?; Functions of governance: What are the functions of global economic governance? Who performs them? What are the rules and mechanisms that make global governance possible? Problems and prospects of governance: What are the problems in global economic governance? Is there a trade-off between legitimacy and efficiency? What are the prospects for reform of global economic governance in the aftermath of the global financial crisis? This book will: _ Provide a thorough analysis of the issues at stake in designing international rules and institutions able to govern the global economy; _ Illustrate and analyze virtually all the main institutions, rules, and arrangements that make up global economic governance, inscribing them within the function these institutions, rules, and arrangements are meant to perform; _ Discuss the problems that affect today’s global economic governance and assess alternative proposals to reform the international financial architecture.

This book explores the relationship between regionalization and global governance, surveying the theoretical debates, economic dimensions, security considerations and governing structures.

The book critically analyzes the ongoing changes in the regional, intra-regional, and global dynamics of cooperation, from a multi-disciplinary and pluralist perspective. It is based on the insight that in a post-hegemonic world the formation of regions and the process of globalization can be largely disconnected from the orbit of the US, and that a plurality of power and worldviews has replaced US hegemony. In spite of these changes, most existing analyses of current changes in the world order still rely upon Western-centered approaches, and Westphalian thinking. Against this backdrop, the book proposes to advance a truly global IR understanding of the post-hegemonic world, and weaves together the pluralist and multi-disciplinary perspectives of scholars located all around the world.

A collection of revised papers from the 'Multilateralizing Regionalism' conference, held at the WTO in September 2007.