Why Do Countries Seek Regional Trade Agreements?

This paper emphasizes the range of factors which enter country calculations to seek regional trading arrangements. These include conventional access benefits, but extend to safe haven concerns, the use of trade arrangements to underpin security arrangements, and tactical interplay between multilateral and regional trade negotiating positions. In a final section, results from an earlier modelling effort by Perroni and Whalley are used to emphasize that non- traditional objectives may be quantitatively more important than traditionally analyzed objectives.