World Trade Organization and Trade Agreements: A Theoretical Investigation

世界贸易组织和贸易协定：理论研究

• 批准号: 419882940
• 负责人: Professor Dr. Gerald Willmann, Ph.D.
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: Southern Methodist University
• 依托单位国家: 德国
• 项目类别: Research Grants
• 财政年份: 2019
• 资助国家: 德国
• 起止时间: 2018-12-31 至 2021-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gepris.dfg.de/gepris/projekt/419882940?language=en
• 关键词: World; Trade; Organization; Agreements; Theoretical

Over the last seventy years, following the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), the world has experienced a substantial liberalization of the international trade. At first, the liberalization process was carried out through a sequence of rounds of multilateral trade negotiations based on the non-discriminatory principle. Starting in the eighties of the previous century, the bilateral or mega-regional preferential liberalization has become the engine for a further and more profound proliferation of free trade, albeit on a discriminatory basis. Why do countries sign trade agreements? Are multilateral and preferential liberalization complimentary or opposing forms of opening up international trade? Should the World Trade Organization search for new ways of liberalization as many experts consider the Doha Round of multilateral trade negotiations to be a failure? These are the central questions that our project aims at analyzing.In two scientific work-packages (WPs), this project will investigate the impact of bilateral preferential liberalization on the formation of the world trading system. Moreover, we shall contribute to the unexplored avenues of the research on mega-regional trade agreements and on plurilateral liberalization (WP1). In WP2 we aim at extending the literature on the motives for trade agreements. More specifically, we aim at extending the domestic-commitment motive explanation of TAs by developing a theoretical model connecting the decision on TAs and the degree of liberalization to “political fundamentals”. Furthermore, we shall analyze the issue of high applied MFN tariffs observed even after preferential liberalization between countries. WP3 will organize the research cooperation.

在关税及贸易总协定（关贸总协定）之后的过去七十年里，世界经历了国际贸易的大幅度自由化。最初，自由化进程是通过以非歧视原则为基础的多轮多边贸易谈判进行的。从上世纪80年代开始，双边或大型区域优惠自由化已成为自由贸易进一步和更深刻扩散的引擎，尽管是在歧视的基础上。各国为什么要签署贸易协定？多边和优惠自由化是国际贸易开放的互补形式还是对立形式？在许多专家认为多哈回合多边贸易谈判已经失败的情况下，世界贸易组织是否应该寻求新的自由化途径？这些都是我们项目旨在分析的核心问题。在两个科学工作包中，该项目将调查双边优惠自由化对世界贸易体系形成的影响。此外，我们将为研究大型区域贸易协定和诸边自由化（WP1）的未开发途径作出贡献。在WP2中，我们的目标是扩展有关贸易协定动机的文献。更具体地说，我们旨在通过建立一个将贸易协定决策和自由化程度与“政治基本面”联系起来的理论模型，来扩展贸易协定的国内承诺动机解释。此外，我们将分析即使在国家之间的优惠自由化之后仍然存在的高适用最惠国关税问题。WP3将组织研究合作。