Publication

This paper examines the East Asian countries' efforts to liberalize the regional market by cooperating with each other. More specifically, the author investigates 1) why Regional Trade Agreements (RTA) have been proliferating in East Asia; 2) what the main characteristics of East Asian RTAs are; 3) whether the East Asian countries are natural trading partners for each other when it comes to enhancing welfare gains from RTAs; and 4) what the future holds for East Asian RTAs.