TY  - JOUR
AU  - Krueger,Anne O.
TI  - Free Trade Agreements versus Customs Unions
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 5084
PY  - 1995
Y2  - April 1995
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w5084
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w5084.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Anne O. Krueger
Department of International Economics
SAIS, Johns Hopkins University
1740 Massachusetts Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20036
Tel: 202/587-3238
E-Mail: annekrueger@jhu.edu
AB  - Until NAFTA, analyses of preferential trading arrangements began by assuming a customs union with a common external tariff, and the differences between customs unions and free trade agreements (FTAs) have been little analyzed.  This paper points to some of the differences between FTAs and customs unions, and shows that on welfare grounds a customs union is always Pareto-superior to an FTA. Moreover, the political economy of FTAs will lead to more opposition to further multilateral trade liberalization than will customs unions.
ER  -