The Political Economy of Designing International Trade Institutions Público

Kucik, Jeffrey Robert (2010)

Permanent URL: https://etd.library.emory.edu/concern/etds/1g05fb73h?locale=pt-BR
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Abstract


Abstract
The Political Economy of Designing International Trade Institutions
By Jeffrey Kucik
Recent work emphasizes the important role contractual design plays in influencing state
policy decisions. In particular, it has been argued that providing member states with
opportunities to escape temporarily from their contractual obligations promotes
international cooperation. However, in spite of the benefits associated with "flexible"
contracts, we continue to observe wide variation in the design of international
agreements. This variation is especially prevalent in the context of preferential trade
agreements-formal interstate treaties in which members grant reciprocal market access
to one another. In this project I offer a new explanation of institutional design that
focuses on political competition between domestic interest groups. Specifically, I argue
that the benefits of flexible contracts are enjoyed unevenly across the domestic market.
This asymmetry divides the preferences of the market along sector lines. Import-
competing industries reap the rewards from flexible contracts while their export-
dependent counterparts pay a disproportionate amount of the costs. Through a large-N
analysis relying on original data on the design of 330 trade agreements since 1960, I find
evidence that the sector composition of the domestic market is a strong predictor of
agreement design. I also show the implications that agreement design have for the
strategies states can use to manage global market risk.


The Political Economy of Designing International Trade Institutions
By
Jeffrey Kucik
MA, University of Manchester, 2005
BA, NC State University, 2003
Adviser: Eric Reinhardt, PhD
A dissertation submitted to the Faculty of the
James T. Laney School of Graduate Studies of Emory University
in partial fulfillment of the requirement for the degree of
Doctor of Philosophy in Political Science, 2010

Table of Contents



Table of Contents

1 The Rise of Preferential Trade Agreements 1

2 International Cooperation, Institutional Design and Market Risk 22

3 Explaining Variation in International Institutional Design 46

4 Domestic Producers, Market Power, and the Design of Trade Agreements 63

5 Implications for Domestic Welfare Policy 95

6 Conclusion 135


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