While considerable progress has been made in analyzing the formulation of international economic policies, the existing literature remains deficient in several respects. First, the existing models take a relatively simplistic view of the political-economy environment. For example, in contrast to the observed reality, a large majority of the models view the government as a monolithic entity. Second, there is only limited recognition of the political-economy interactions between interest groups across national borders. Third, dynamic factors governing trade policy formulation have been...

Proponents of free trade routinely argue that an important benefit for developing countries is that it provides significant economic opportunities for their asset-less workers. By now, virtually all developing countries, have moved towards integrating themselves more closely with the international economy. To what extent have workers actually benefited from this integration? "The Impact of Trade on Labor" attempts to piece together broad-based evidence on the effects of trade liberalization on labor markets in developing countries in general, and selected countries from developing Asia in...