People passionately disagree about the nature of the globalization process. The failure of both the 1999 and 2003 World Trade Organization's (WTO) ministerial conferences in Seattle and Cancun, respectively, have highlighted the tensions among official, international organizations like the WTO, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank, nongovernmental and private sector organizations, and some developing country governments. These tensions are commonly attributed to longstanding disagreements over such issues as labor rights, environmental standards, and tariff-cutting rules. In...

Much recent research has been devoted to the consequences of the completion of the internal market in 1992. Existing estimates of the effects of market integration remain very preliminary, however, and many important issues have yet to be adequately addressed. These formed the subject of a conference on "The Impact of 1992 on European Trade and Industry" held by the Centre for Economic Policy Research. This book reports the proceedings of that conference. The contributors to the volume address such issues as the gains to be expected from both "internal" and "external" economies of scale...

Much recent research has been devoted to the consequences of the completion of the internal market in 1992. Existing estimates of the effects of market integration remain very preliminary, however, and many important issues have yet to be adequately addressed. These formed the subject of a conference on "The Impact of 1992 on European Trade and Industry" held by the Centre for Economic Policy Research. This book reports the proceedings of that conference. The contributors to the volume address such issues as the gains to be expected from both "internal" and "external" economies of scale...

'Given the remarkable increase in regional integration agreements RIAs] in the past decade, understanding of their economic rationale and consequences is essential. Schiff and Winters succeed admirably in covering the conceptual, empirical, and policy issues arising from RIAs in an informed, comprehensible, and accessible manner. Their book should be required reading for policy analysts, academics, and students concerned with evaluation of RIA initiatives.' -- Robert M. Stern, Department of Economics and Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy, University of Michigan 'Regional Integration and...

Recent theories of economic growth, fiscal policy and the open economy have important implications for "sustainable development." Papers in this volume, derived from a Centre for Economic Policy Research joint conference with the OECD Development Centre, examine the implications of explicitly incorporating resource depletion, pollution abatement and sustainability into orthodox economic theory, while also injecting a macroeconomic debate on the environment.

This collection of essays provides the definitive survey of the importance of agricultural reform to the future of the world's trading system. There is growing consensus concerning the need to reduce the level of subsidies in agriculture and to open up the markets of the developed world more to the farmers of the developing world. However, while non-governmental organizations such as Oxfam may agree on this point with free trade economists, governments in Europe and the U.S. seem reluctant to give up their protectionist habits.

Non-Tariff Barriers, Regionalism and Poverty collects together some of the key articles in three important areas of applied international trade research: measuring non-tariff barriers and their effects, the consequences of regional trading arrangements, especially on the countries excluded from them, and the connection between international trade and poverty. Drawing from 30 years of research and experience, L Alan Winters illustrates the development of techniques of this field and his continued commitment to answering real policy questions at the times at which they are debated. The...