Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/1025 
Year of Publication: 
1998
Series/Report no.: 
Kiel Working Paper No. 869
Publisher: 
Kiel Institute of World Economics (IfW), Kiel
Abstract: 
The paper discusses similarities and differences between past EU binding internal liberalization „across the board“ in the industrial sector and present so-called voluntary sectoral liberalization of member states of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC). While both approaches are second-best compared to unconcerted unilateral liberalization, the major disadvantage of liberalization APEC style in the industrial sector consists in introducing distortions between sectors as well as between member states due to rising disparities in timing liberalization within Asia Pacific. Such disparities raise problems of time consistency of liberalization under the so-called Bogor target of achieving free trade within APEC in 2010 (2020 for less advanced member states). Reliance on „peer pressure“ as the only mechanism to commit member states to liberalization is seen as a weak driving force to make APEC’s concerted unilateralism a stepping stone for the successor round of the Uruguay Round. The paper proposes a number of measures successfully applied in the EU to give APEC’s liberalization more „teeth“ to the benefit of multilateral liberalization.
Subjects: 
trade liberalization
open regionalism
multilateral trade negotiations
regional integration
JEL: 
F14
F15
F15
F14
Document Type: 
Working Paper

Files in This Item:
File
Size
203.36 kB





Items in EconStor are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated.