Maggie Xiaoyang Chen and Aaditya Mattoo are breaking new ground in the literature on preferential trade by exploring the topic of regionalism in standards:

Two factors explain the shift in regional negotiating emphasis away from conventional barriers and toward standards. First, multilateral negotiations have achieved remarkable reductions in tariffs and quotas but done relatively little to reduce the trade restrictive impact of technical barriers. Second, while multilateral trade rules governing regional agreement on tariffs seek at least in principle to balance the interests of integrating countries and the rights of excluded countries, the rules treat regional agreement on standards as always benign and worth of encouragement.

Are regional agreements on technical barriers indeed an unambiguous blessing for global trade? The voluminous research on regionalism with its almost exclusive focus on tariffs and quotas provide no adequate answer. This paper is a first step in the theoretical and empirical analysis of regional initiatives on technical barriers to trade.

I haven’t yet finished reading the paper, but it’s quite interesting thus far.