How deep trade agreements shape non-trade outcomes: A new eBook

By A Mystery Man Writer

Trade agreements increasingly include disciplines aimed at achieving non-trade objectives: promoting foreign direct investment, technology transfers, and workers’ movement, but also improving labour conditions and environmental quality and achieving other broader social goals. This column introduces a new eBook that investigates whether these disciplines actually achieve their intended goals. The evidence shows some successes, such as in the area of FDI, technology transfers, and the environment, but also the limits of regulating non-trade policy areas in trade agreements, especially with regards to social outcomes such as child labour.