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• The Economic Impact of Investment Provisions in Regional Trade Agreements*

As countries turn more to regionalism as a means of forwarding co-operation on trade rules and other areas of policymaking, governments are increasingly incorporating rules on investment into regional trade agreements (RTAs). The Asia-Pacific region is no exception, with many innovative agreements that include disciplines on investment protection and non-discrimination. We analyse the economic consequences of including investment provisions in trade agreements by creating an index of the extensiveness of investment provisions in RTAs and then using that index in a gravity model framework of trade and investment. The results indicate that investment provisions are positively associated with trade and, to an even greater extent, investment flows. Further, we observe an insignificant effec...

... via separate bilateral investment treaties (BITs), in many recent RTAs. Thus, it is not surprising ...At the end of 2005, UNCTAD estimates that around 220 RTAs contained investmen...

• Aussenwirtschaft; Zeitschrift für internationale Wirtshaftsbeziehungen
• Vol. 62 Num. 2, Juin 2007