Description
Protectionism is a major concern in the international trading community. The question that arises is how the emergence of protectionism can be prevented and whether regional trade arrangements are a suitable mechanism to enforce liberal trade policies. This book examines these issues, concluding that the success of regional trading arrangements in enforcing good trade policies depends on the quality of the regional agreement and its implementation – simple free trade area is unlikely to be sustainable in the long-run without firm commitments of members to deeper integration. DAVID BEGG Birkbeck College, University of London, UK LUCIAN CERNAT UNCTAD, Geneva, Switzerland MICHAELA ERBENOVA Czech National Bank, Prague, Czech Republic TOMAS HOLUB Czech National Bank, Prague, Czech Republic MIROSLAV HRNCR State Bank of the Czech Republic, Czech Republic SAM LAIRD UNCTAD, Geneva, Switzerland SNDOR MEISEL Institute for World Economics or the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Hungary JAN MICHALEK Warsaw University, Poland List of Tables and Figures Notes on the Contributors Acknowledgements Introduction; Z.Drabek PART I: AN ALTERNATIVE OVERVIEW OF REGIONALISM Regionalism and Trade Discipline; Z.Drabek North, South, East, West: What’s the Best? Modern RTAs and Their Implications; L.Cernat and S.Laird PART II: TRADE AND MACROECONOMIC POLICY IN TRANSITION COUNTRIES Trade Policy and Macroeconomics in European TransitionEconomies; D.Begg Czech Trade, Exchange Rate and Monetary Policies in the 1990s; M.Erbenova & T.Holub PART III: TRADE DISCIPLINE IN THE ACCESSION COUNTRIES OF CENTRAL EUROPE Poland: Stability of Trade Policy and its Determinants; J.Michalek Hungary: Stability of Trade Policy and its Determinants; S.Meisel Trade Policy in the Czech Republic in the Decade of Transition; M.Hrncr
