Since the mid-1970s, the U.S. commodity futures exchanges have increasingly been the focus of tight government regulation, which resulted in strong control by a specific agency: the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. In Europe, the regulation of futures diverged from the U.S. model. No regulation at the communitarian level was implemented; at the national level, the United Kingdom emerged as a model of self-regulation of commodity markets. This article explores the historical causes behind this lack of regulation in Europe, placing it in the context of global commodity trading and arguing that the European regulation of futures trading was reshaped by a dialogue established between the European Commission and big players of commodity futures trading in the City of London. Since the mid-1960s, the City of London has become a pivotal global market venue for commodity futures, which has increasingly attracted players from abroad, thanks to its financial integrity and self-regulatory model. Both established London merchants and emerging players in the global trade of financial products cooperated to stave off any attempt at regulating the London futures exchanges. The inference here is that those attempts were instrumental in setting the conditions leading to the regulatory fragmentation that still characterizes futures trading in the global market.

We present evidence that international trade may exacerbate the initial unequal distribution of hydric resources. This result is driven by the fact that countries exporting agricultural goods are relatively abundant (with respect to capital) in the combined availability of water and arable land but, in absolute terms, scarce in capital and not richer in water in comparison to more developed ones. Due to both the scarcity of capital and the lower relative price of natural resources with respect to capital, the total value of production in these developing countries is modest, implying that international trade can lead to a less even distribution of the water content of consumption. Policies sustaining water prices and, more generally, those of natural resources (or lower capital costs) may contribute to offsetting this effect and allow for trade to play a positive role in reducing the uneven distribution of water endowments.

Although globalization and the world trade regime have reduced the significance of distance between countries, within countries geography matters now more than ever. Inside countries’ borders, economic activities, such as production and employment, occur unevenly across space. As a result, international trade impacts parts of a country differently. Some areas benefit from rising trade, while others experience reductions in local wages and employment as a result of increased import competition. Because regions’ experience of globalization varies, public opinion about trade differs across geographic areas within countries. Voters living in regions advantaged by trade are more likely to support economic openness, while voters living in regions negatively impacted by trade are more skeptical of the benefits of globalization. The geographic disparities in public attitudes towards trade often align with salient political cleavages. As a result, debates over trade have become increasingly polarized in many countries, which may threaten states’ continued economic openness as well as their engagement with, and even support for, the world trade regime.

The Common External Tariff (CET) of the East African Community (EAC) customs union has long been considered the cornerstone of the most successful example of regional integration in Sub-Saharan Africa. In this paper, we assess the implementation of the EAC-CET using a novel dataset of country- and firm-level deviations from the common tariff regime constructed by digitizing information in gazettes published by the Secretariat of the EAC between 2009 and 2019. Employing these data, we present five patterns on EAC tariff policy: (i) increased usage of country-level deviations from the common tariff regime render the EAC-CET less and less ‘common’; (ii) Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda predominantly use unilateral deviations to increase external protection while Rwanda mostly decreases tariffs; (iii) Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda increase tariffs for the same classes of products, but target different industries; (iv) unilateral tariff reductions at the country level are mostly used to facilitate access to inputs; (v) data on firm-level exemptions suggest that private sector development in the EAC would benefit from lower tariffs on intermediate inputs. Our findings demonstrate an incipient but clear trend in the EAC away from a communal tariff regime and towards national and more protectionist trade policies.

Canadian commitments under trade and investment treaties have been an ongoing concern for Indigenous peoples. The Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement (CUSMA) is the first Canadian treaty to include a general exception for measures that a party state “deems necessary to fulfill its legal obligations to [I]ndigenous peoples.” This exception is likely to afford Canada broad, but not unlimited, discretion to determine what its legal obligations to Indigenous peoples require. There is a residual risk that Canada’s reliance on the exception could be challenged through the CUSMA dispute settlement process. A CUSMA panel would not have the expertise necessary to decide inevitably complex questions related to what Canada’s legal obligations to Indigenous peoples require. While state-to-state cases under the North American Free Trade Agreement have been rare, a CUSMA panel adjudication regarding the Indigenous general exception risks damaging consequences for Canada’s relationship with Indigenous peoples.

Inclusive trade is taking hold in various forms in international organizations and in the trade policy of national governments. Absent empirical evidence that will take time to generate, it can be difficult to assess the achievements of this new approach to trade. Nancy Fraser's three justice idioms provide a conceptual entry point for evaluating the potential of the inclusive trade agenda. Fraser argues that the contemporary global justice conversation must acknowledge claims for recognition, representation, and redistribution. Applying this conceptualization to the inclusive trade agenda shows that trade agreement provisions intended to favor women and Indigenous peoples go some distance in addressing claims for recognition and representation but accomplish less in remedying injustices associated with maldistribution. Therefore, the inclusive trade agenda does significantly advance global justice for marginalized groups, but works primarily in ways that are political and cultural, not economic.

What motivates politicians and political parties to shift their positioning on an issue? Focusing on the case of trade policy in countries with advanced economies and plurality electoral systems, I argue that the relative positioning of parties on an existing issue can change even when the preferences of the key actors (voters and politicians) are held constant, and even when party leaders continue to represent the same constituencies. In advanced plurality countries, college-educated voters support free trade, and high-density constituencies are predominantly represented by Left incumbents. As college-educated workers migrate to high-density constituencies in pursuit of higher wages, Left incumbents increasingly embrace free trade, while Right incumbents take more protectionist positions. I provide empirical support for several observable implications of my theory.

What explains the design of international institutions? Existing research has largely neglected how experience in cooperation in one set of international institutions impacts on design choices made by states in other globally-oriented institutions. We contribute to this evolving debate by analyzing spillovers in experience in international trade. We argue that countries' track record of interaction in multilateral trade disputes affects the design of their preferential trade agreements (PTAs). If a country participates in a complaint against a prospective PTA partner at the World Trade Organization (WTO), the challenge in Geneva alerts the defendant's import-competing industries with respect to potential challenges under the planned PTA. As a result, these industries exert pressure on their government to preserve leeway under the future treaty, leading to increased flexibility and a lower level of enforcement in the PTA. We find support for our hypotheses in an empirical analysis of 347 PTAs concluded post 1990.

In 2004, Morocco, Tunisia, Egypt, and Jordan signed the Agadir Agreement (AA), a free trade agreement with intention of encouraging closer cooperation in trade. The AA came into force in 2007 and relies on the EU's rules of origin. Contrary to existing explanations, which suggest that the little impact of the AA on intraregional trade is a result of the local political elites in the agreement and of weak state institutions, this article amends the concept of isomorphic mimicry to shed some light on the ineffectiveness of the AA. It claims that instead of acting as a vehicle for regional integration, the AA generated two capability traps: premature load bearing and the reproduction of the structural weaknesses of Arab Mediterranean economies. As a result, the AA does not act as an instrument of intraregional cooperation and inclusive growth.

This paper applies machine learning to recreate to a high degree of accuracy the OECD's Services Trade Restrictiveness Index (STRI) to provide quantitative evidence on the restrictiveness of services policies in 2016 for a sample of developing countries, using regulatory data collected by the World Bank and WTO. Resulting estimates are used to extend the OECD STRI approach to 23 additional countries, producing what we term a Services Policy Index (SPI). Converting the SPI to ad valorem equivalent terms shows that services policies are typically much more restrictive than tariffs on imports of goods, in particular in professional services and telecommunications. The SPI has strong explanatory power for bilateral trade in services at the sectoral level, as well as for aggregate goods and services trade.