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Pravin Krishna provides the analytical tools for evaluating the economic effects of preferential trade agreements (PTAs) on member and non-member countries. He demonstrates that PTAs have ambiguous welfare effects, with net benefits largely depending on whether they are trade creating or trade diverting. Contrary to conventional wisdom, he finds that claims in favor of geographic proximity or regionalism as a basis for extending trade preferences are not supported theoretically or empirically. This suggests that other factors, such as the wish to forge closer political ties, probably also motivate countries to seek regional PTAs. Krishna argues that PTAs can be designed in ways that limit trade diversion and augment their welfare-enhancing effects, but WTO rules do not encourage these results. A widely debated topic surrounding PTAs is whether they distract from or support multilateral trade liberalization. Krishna finds that the academic literature is divided on these issues.

Neo-Marxist approaches have begun again to exercise influence in contemporary critiques of globalization. This chapter sketches a transnational and national class-based analysis of international trade-regulatory agreements, using the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) as the representative ideal type. With this framework, it looks at the implications of the TPP model for developing countries in the area of foreign investment and intellectual property rights in the matrix of the recent evolution of these two regimes. It further examines strategies available to the United States and India as their different domestic class constellations struggle over the countries’ political positioning towards economic globalization.

Unlike conventional trade agreements, the scope of the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) extends beyond the treatment of products to cover that of suppliers (producers, distributors, etc) as well. Trade problems confronting small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) supplying services have thus been raised by WTO Members at different stages of the Doha Round negotiations and meetings of regular WTO bodies. However, such issues have rarely been explored in a systemic way. This chapter provides an overview of SME-related policies, whether reflected in schedules of services commitments or consisting of ‘non-schedulable’ measures, which are being pursued by WTO Members at multilateral (GATS) or regional level. It also seeks to identify the scope for further initiatives to promote SME-related interests, from fostering compliance with existing transparency disciplines under the GATS to advancing the Agreement’s liberalization and rule-making mandates with an SME focus.