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68
provides empirical support for a European domino effect as proposed by Baldwin
(1995, 1997).
The appeal of Baldwin’s theory is that it subsumes congestion costs and
incorporates international politics, albeit in limited scope. It is difficult to accept his
assertion that emergence of RTAs in Europe and the US are independent. It seems
unreasonable to reject out of hand any interdependency between the US and Europe
simply because European integration was deeper. Furthermore, the premise of the
domino theory speaks to the interdependency between states so to reject
interdependence, however limited, between the US and Europe at the outset of the
argument seems inconsistent.
Beyond the inconsistency in the logic associated with positing a domino
theory and then denying any interdependency between the two key actors, Baldwin
(1995, 1997) imposes limiting assumptions. If one does not accept his assertion that
control of a substantial volume of trade is a necessary condition for consideration as
an observation in the analysis, one can argue that the small size of his data set
diminishes the importance of the conclusions drawn from the fragmentary case
analyses. For example, the US and Canada are not representative states of the
international community. Both the US and Canada are among the richest countries
in the world and the much smaller Canadian economy is increasingly reliant upon the
US to absorb its surplus output and investment yet remains fiercely independent of
the US politically and culturally. The two countries share the longest undefended
border in the world and, since the 1996 renewal of the North American Aerospace
Object Description
| Title | Riding the wave: an interdisciplinary approach to understanding the popularity of RTA notifications to the GATT/WTO |
| Author | McClough, David Andrew |
| Author email | mcclough@usc.edu; dmcclou@bgsu.edu |
| Degree | Doctor of Philosophy |
| Document type | Dissertation |
| Degree program | Political Economy & Public Policy |
| School | College of Letters, Arts and Sciences |
| Date defended/completed | 2008-08-07 |
| Date submitted | 2008 |
| Restricted until | Unrestricted |
| Date published | 2008-10-18 |
| Advisor (committee chair) | Katada, Saori N. |
| Advisor (committee member) |
Nugent, Jeffrey B. Cartier, Carolyn |
| Abstract | The proliferation of Regional Trade Agreements (RTAs) notified to the GATT/WTO since the early 1980s deviates from the long-term trend and reflects participation of nearly every member of the United Nations. This dissertation seeks to explain the current wave of RTA notifications by supplementing the economic model of supply and demand with diffusion theory. Application of the supply and demand model is useful in distinguishing between changes in demand and changes insupply of RTAs. This distinction is seldom emphasized in the current literature examining RTAs. Recent applications of diffusion theory in the discipline of international relations offer a unique opportunity to include a dynamic force in the static analysis of the supply and demand model. Empirical analysis assesses the fit of the RTA diffusion pattern by comparing the RTA diffusion pattern to a cumulative standard normal distribution. The analysis indicates that the diffusion pattern of RTAs resembles the diffusion of an innovation through a social system.; The implication of this finding is that the adoption of an RTA as trade policy is not made independently of the decision by other states. Indeed, the analysis suggests interdependency between states. Further empirical analysis explores economic and political variables that may explain the decision to adopt the RTA as trade policy. The empirical analysis is unique in that survival analysis is utilized to assess the variation in duration to adopt an initial RTA since the early 1980s. A central discovery is that regional designation explains the variation in duration to adopt an initial RTA. Multiple regression analysis confirms the results generated using survival analysis and support the assertion that the proliferation of RTAs likely reflects changes in both the demand for RTAs and the supply of RTAs. This dissertation concludes by considering implications for the WTO resulting from the increase in RTA notifications. |
| Keyword | trade agreements |
| Coverage date | after 1980 |
| Language | English |
| Part of collection | University of Southern California dissertations and theses |
| Publisher (of the original version) | University of Southern California |
| Place of publication (of the original version) | Los Angeles, California |
| Publisher (of the digital version) | University of Southern California. Libraries |
| Provenance | Electronically uploaded by the author |
| Type | texts |
| Legacy record ID | usctheses-m1675 |
| Contributing entity | University of Southern California |
| Rights | McClough, David Andrew |
| Repository name | Libraries, University of Southern California |
| Repository address | Los Angeles, California |
| Repository email | cisadmin@lib.usc.edu |
| Filename | etd-McClough-2338 |
| Archival file | uscthesesreloadpub_Volume32/etd-McClough-2338.pdf |
Description
| Title | Page 77 |
| Contributing entity | University of Southern California |
| Repository email | cisadmin@lib.usc.edu |
| Full text | 68 provides empirical support for a European domino effect as proposed by Baldwin (1995, 1997). The appeal of Baldwin’s theory is that it subsumes congestion costs and incorporates international politics, albeit in limited scope. It is difficult to accept his assertion that emergence of RTAs in Europe and the US are independent. It seems unreasonable to reject out of hand any interdependency between the US and Europe simply because European integration was deeper. Furthermore, the premise of the domino theory speaks to the interdependency between states so to reject interdependence, however limited, between the US and Europe at the outset of the argument seems inconsistent. Beyond the inconsistency in the logic associated with positing a domino theory and then denying any interdependency between the two key actors, Baldwin (1995, 1997) imposes limiting assumptions. If one does not accept his assertion that control of a substantial volume of trade is a necessary condition for consideration as an observation in the analysis, one can argue that the small size of his data set diminishes the importance of the conclusions drawn from the fragmentary case analyses. For example, the US and Canada are not representative states of the international community. Both the US and Canada are among the richest countries in the world and the much smaller Canadian economy is increasingly reliant upon the US to absorb its surplus output and investment yet remains fiercely independent of the US politically and culturally. The two countries share the longest undefended border in the world and, since the 1996 renewal of the North American Aerospace |
