DYNAMICS AND POLITICS IN REGIONAL-INTEGRATION ARRANGEMENTS - AN INTRODUCTION

Overwhelming evidence links openness and economic growth. In recent ye ars many developing countries have attempted to liberalize their trade and investment regimes, mostly through autonomous unilateral liberali zation. At the same time, a growing number of governments have begun t o explore and participate in regional trading agreements. The agreemen ts grant reciprocal trade preferences to participating countries, resu lting in discrimination against nonmembers. The causes and consequence s of regional integration have given rise to an extensive and vigorous debate among both scholars and policymakers. However, the quality of this debate has been seriously hampered by the absence of clear analyt ical models and empirical evidence on many of the factors under discus sion. Few of the recent arguments in favor of regional integration arr angements have been satisfactorily formalized or tested. To address so me of these issues, a World Bank research program focuses on new and d eveloping country aspects of regionalism. The program explores lacunae in the traditional static analysis of regional integration arrangemen ts; addresses the dynamic effects of integration, the economics of dee p integration, and the politics and political economy of regional inte gration arrangements; and compares regionalism with multilateralism. T he articles in this symposium address the topics of dynamics, politics , and political economy in regional integration agreements.