Assessment And Measurement Of Regional Integration

A unique examination of why the quest for global free trade often forgets that trade liberalization is organized regionally rather than multilaterally. There are now more than 250 regional integration initiatives and this number is steadily increasing. This trend raises a key question: What is the impact of regional integration, both for the countries involved and for those excluded from regional integration schemes? Using a combined economic, political science and scientific approach, this book explores how regional integration can be measured and evaluated and delivers comprehensive answers. It looks at the methodological problems involved in designing monitoring tools for regional integration in a systematic way and makes a number of concrete suggestions for designing and organising systems of indicators of regional integration. It also offers a critical overview of available indicators and tools and presents crucial new monitoring instruments. This book will be of great interest to students and researchers of international relations and economics as well as policy makers and professionals within international and regional organizations.

The books fills a niche in the market for books on regional integration, where most of the publications deal with theory or the analysis of specific cases, almost no books can be found dealing with analytical methodology The book includes a combination of well-known and expert scholars and up and coming young academics The book will appeal strongly to both economists and politics and while the authors present an interdisciplinary approach the economists and political sceintsists approaches are kept separate

Regional Integration provides a comprehensive and critical analysis of both the theoretical and empirical literature in international economic integration initially inspired by the creation of the European Coal and Steel Community in 1951 and enhanced since the 1960s through the proliferation of regional integration schemes. Focusing on the pure theoretical and technical empirical work in the field, the author covers all developments in abstract modeling and measurement techniques. In assessing the experience of regional integration, El-Agraa addresses the issues of customs unions versus free trade areas, customs unilateral tariff reduction, regional integration and multilateralism, and estimating the benefits of integrated markets. Regional Integration fully updates and revises the analysis of the author s very well-received The Theory and Measurement of International Economic Integration (1989) to take into account the impact of another decade of rapid integration around the world."

The Regional Integration Manual brings together different methods for monitoring and analysing regional integration processes in a systematic way. Employing a multi-disciplinary approach, it seeks to provide officials in regional organisations, researchers in think tanks, academics and students worldwide with an accessible set of both quantitative and qualitative tools, useful in their day-to-day work. The Manual addresses an increasing demand for such tools, in a world where mechanisms and ideas for effective regional government and governance are in dire need, whereas the monitoring and analytical capabilities of official and non-governmental actors often lag behind. It also addresses a rapidly growing academic community studying the determinants, depth, speed and other characteristics of regional integration and co-operation. Employing a multi-disciplinary approach, The Regional Integration Manual will be of interest to scholars of governance and regional politics as well as policy-makers and those in regional organisations.

The Regional Integration Manual brings together different methods for monitoring and analysing regional integration processes in a systematic way. Employing a multi-disciplinary approach, it seeks to provide officials in regional organisations, researchers in think tanks, academics and students worldwide with an accessible set of both quantitative and qualitative tools, useful in their day-to-day work. The Manual addresses an increasing demand for such tools, in a world where mechanisms and ideas for effective regional government and governance are in dire need, whereas the monitoring and analytical capabilities of official and non-governmental actors often lag behind. It also addresses a rapidly growing academic community studying the determinants, depth, speed and other characteristics of regional integration and co-operation. Employing a multi-disciplinary approach, The Regional Integration Manual will be of interest to scholars of governance and regional politics as well as policy-makers and those in regional organisations.

Developing countries have joined the rapidly growing global system of regional trade agreements (RTAs) over the past years. The drive towards regional integration has advanced with the formation of new markets and groups in Latin America, Africa, Asia, the Middle East and Oceania with few developing countries remaining outside these regional schemes. This volume looks at how 'getting governance right' is a central element for successful RTA implementation, taking stock of the quality and effectiveness of the monitoring of development country RTAs around the world. Organized by the main world regions and primarily focusing on developing country RTAs, the book also includes two case studies focused on monitoring in developed country regional agreements by way of comparison. The contributors operationalize governance in the context of RTA implementation with a more narrow and technical term of 'monitoring' and provide eight important lessons for assessing monitoring around the world.

This volume brings together experts from different world regions. It presents various experiences with building indicator systems for monitoring the implementation of regional economic integration policies such as preferential trade areas, common markets or economic and monetary unions. The volume discusses both the technical and governance aspects of such systems, and best practices. The regional experiences that are covered include: the European Union, Eurasia, ASEAN, the East African Community (EAC), COMESA, CARICOM, the African-Caribbean-Pacific Group, and the Americas. In addition, various chapters discuss cross-cutting methodological challenges related to trade-related indicators.

This book challenges prevailing assumptions of a strong connection between international migration and regional integration by arguing there is no substantial relationship between them and that they should not be conflated. Using this perspective, countries can consider the benefits of integration policies without worrying about migration policies.