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99
The language used by the WTO is revealing. Identification of the Doha
Round as a development round reflects: 1) Growing influence of developing nations
among the membership, and 2) Broadening of the original GATT/WTO mandate to
facilitate free-trade through negotiated tariff reductions. In addition to further trade
barrier reductions on merchandise trade, a partial list of the agenda for the current
Doha Round includes: TRIMs (trade related investment measures), TRIPs (trade
related intellectual property), competition policy, agricultural tariffs, agricultural
subsidies, labor regulations, transparency, and environmental regulations (World
Bank 2000). The improbability of achieving consensus on these controversial issues
populating an expanded agenda can be expected to increase the duration of
multilateral trade negotiations.
The preceding discussion identifies congestion costs emanating from two
distinct sources: first, the expansion of the membership alters the distribution of
preferences making consensus more difficult; and second, the enlargement of the
agenda to include non-tariff issues, which may be more complicated to negotiate
across a diverse membership with divergent preferences.
Collective action is more difficult in large groups representing diverse
interests. The combination of an inflated membership and an expanded agenda
portends challenging multilateral trade negotiations and escalating congestion costs.
Anecdotal evidence from the current Doha Round supports this assertion. Failure of
the 2003 Ministerial meeting in Cancun, Mexico, and collapse of the 2007
Ministerial talks in Potsdam, Germany, offer evidence that, at least, the expanding
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 108 |
| Contributing entity | University of Southern California |
| Repository email | cisadmin@lib.usc.edu |
| Full text | 99 The language used by the WTO is revealing. Identification of the Doha Round as a development round reflects: 1) Growing influence of developing nations among the membership, and 2) Broadening of the original GATT/WTO mandate to facilitate free-trade through negotiated tariff reductions. In addition to further trade barrier reductions on merchandise trade, a partial list of the agenda for the current Doha Round includes: TRIMs (trade related investment measures), TRIPs (trade related intellectual property), competition policy, agricultural tariffs, agricultural subsidies, labor regulations, transparency, and environmental regulations (World Bank 2000). The improbability of achieving consensus on these controversial issues populating an expanded agenda can be expected to increase the duration of multilateral trade negotiations. The preceding discussion identifies congestion costs emanating from two distinct sources: first, the expansion of the membership alters the distribution of preferences making consensus more difficult; and second, the enlargement of the agenda to include non-tariff issues, which may be more complicated to negotiate across a diverse membership with divergent preferences. Collective action is more difficult in large groups representing diverse interests. The combination of an inflated membership and an expanded agenda portends challenging multilateral trade negotiations and escalating congestion costs. Anecdotal evidence from the current Doha Round supports this assertion. Failure of the 2003 Ministerial meeting in Cancun, Mexico, and collapse of the 2007 Ministerial talks in Potsdam, Germany, offer evidence that, at least, the expanding |
