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This thesis investigates three aspects of trade liberalisation. Chapter Two presents a model with business cycle uncertainty, monopolistic competition, and productively heterogeneous firms. The results show that greater trade liberalisation does not always lead to increased firm-level aggregate productivity, since weaker firms can export in the face of adverse home shocks. However, trade liberalisation dampens price-output fluctuations, and is welfare improving if countries have trade partners with uncorrelated shocks. This is a pro-globalisation result since it implies greater macroeconomic stability. Some empirical evidence is presented to support this view. Chapter Three introduces firm heterogeneity into an Economic Geography setting. The results show that even a small difference in the productivity distributions between two locations can have a significant impact on capital distribution - even as wage-rental rates remain the same across locations - if trade is free enough. It provides an alternative perspective to the Lucas Paradox. The model also shows why high sunk cost industries will locate in less risky locations (North) with greater trade liberalisation, while low sunk cost industries go the other way. Trade liberalisation accentuates these effects, and leads to a different North-South industrial specialisation. Chapter Four introduces worker skills heterogeneity into an Economic Geography setting. Trade liberalisation occurs in two separate waves. Manufacturing first agglomerates when goods trade is liberalised. The result shows that subsequent services trade liberalisation can lead to a loss in manufacturing (or de-industrialisation), changes in specialisation, and stagnation of manufacturing wages. As a consequence of trade liberalisation, there is inequality both within and between nations. The results also show that a relative increase in skilled workers may lead to greater (not less) skilled workers' premium if it encourages greater services agglomeration. The model is consistent with North-South development patterns.

The greatest concentration of regionalism in international trade today can be found in the Asian Pacific region, and the number of international trade agreements in that region is still rising. In the general literature on regionalism, some proponents claim that regionalism can be a test-site for developing countries to enhancing their institutional capacity, before they actively engage in future trade liberalising agreements. Could the institutional enhancement explain the rise of regionalism in the Asian region. This claim, however, remains empirically untested. This thesis aims to examine this claim by observing the effects inter-regional trade agreements have on developing countries, especially on provisions that eliminate regulatory barriers to trade, and how those provisions may enhance institutional capacity to tackle future trade agreements with regulatory barriers to trade. More importantly, the thesis examines whether those improvements contribute to developments of their own intra-regional trade agreements. The case study countries chosen are Singapore and Thailand because they have spearheaded the most trade agreements in the region. The thesis examines the effects of regionalism on domestic institutions both at the macro level - general institutions involved with trade policy making, and the micro level - specific institutions involved with the regulatory aspect of trade. To obtain a more comprehensive account of institutional development, the micro level includes two types of institutions: one on the development of trade facilitation, representing trade in goods; the other on the movement of persons, representing trade in services. Overall, developments at the macro and micro levels - improvements in negotiating capacity, moderate progress in governmental cooperation, creation of new governmental agencies, greater involvement of the business community and inputs from civil society- have all contributed to building the case study countries' institutional capacity. This in turn allowed them similarly to improve regulatory barriers to trade in their own intra-regional trade agreements, illustrating how trade agreements enhance developing countries' domestic institutions to engage in future trade agreements.

The twin processes of "economic development" and "state behaviour'' are explained by the major paradigms through reference to economically "reductionist" methodologies. In particular Marxist and Late Development theories have helped perpetuate this methodology. This thesis provides an alternative framework for understanding the above-mentioned processes. In particular, the "autonomous powers" of the state will form a central approach throughout each chapter. Not only do states have multiple powers, but these vary across different political regime forms. These powers are revealed through an empirical examination of the determination of tariff protectionism as it emerged in Europe in the late 187CK s. The argument will focus on a multi-causal approach. Thus the causal input of economic interest groups will be examined. Although these will form a part of the explanation offered here, they will have less salience than is commonly found in the social science literature. The interests of the state are mainly those connected to the demands of "fiscal accumulation". Overall "state interests" are neither monolithic nor unified. Thus it will not be possible to speak of the state as an "actor". States are not so rational as the term would imply. Moreover, "the state" turns out to be a complex political arena of struggling factions, all vying for exclusivist political power. These autonomous state struggles impacted upon economic development; in this case, tariff protectionism. As well as explaining the rise of protectionism in Germany and Russia, as well as America (chapter 2, 3 and 5), the maintenance of British free trade will be also be explained through the model presented here. In addition, industrialisation in Russia will be explained, also from the approach of statist-economy. This approach will be developed more fully in the final chapter.

In this thesis we investigate the diffusion of information like news, announcements, and commercials in social networks. Such information propagates through a mix of mass communication and interpersonal communication. For example, people who watch a TV spot about a new car will discuss it with their friends. Both communication methods influence the awareness, preferences, and opinions that people display towards certain topics, products, and services. The effects of mass and inter-personal communication on the diffusion process have been studied intensively in several areas, for example, in sociology, economics, social psychology, political science, and marketing. Most of these studies highlight the role of inter-personal relation structures, that is, the network of social ties, in the diffusion process. However, a concise diffusion model that quantifies the effects of social networks and helps to improve mass communication towards structured populations is still in demand. Our purpose is first to analyse the drivers of social networks, then to model the diffusion of information on social networks, and finally to quantify the network effects on the diffusion process. We describe and construct social networks as graphs and present anthropological, psychological, and random factors that shape them. Based on one of these factors, structural balancing, we propose an evolutionary model of social networks, suggesting that the structure of social networks can change dramatically over time. For modelling diffusion processes on social networks, we follow a two-step procedure. We first combine three different generation methods, the generalised random graph, the small-world model, and a third method (random graph with a given assortment structure) to design realistic networks. Then we simulate the propagation of information on these networks. As the computer requirements for such simulations can be expensive, we introduce an efficient computer algorithm that is widely applicable to complex diffusion studies in markets, organisations, and societies. One result of the simulations is a robust closed-form approximation to the diffusion's trajectory in networks. Such an approximation allows marketing and PR managers to predict aggregate market outcomes such as the popularity of a commercial through surveys prior to the launch of a promotional campaign. The simulations also indicate the impact of the network's structure on the diffusion. To measure the network effects on the propagation of information, we run regression analyses with the communication intensity and the different network features as explanatory variables. These network features are the degree distribution, the transitivity (clustering), degree correlation, and the average path length. The regressions show, above all, that network effects are conditional on the intensity of mass communication: the less intensive mass communication, the more important become network effects. For mass communication typical in marketing and PR, the network structure can have a strong impact on the diffusion process. The regressions quantify the respective contribution of each network feature on the diffusion process over time. Our findings confirm and partly reconcile contradictionary results of comparable studies in epidemics and sociology. Finally, our analysis allows us to prioritise different network effects. This can be useful in various situations, for example, when estimating a diffusion process with incomplete network data.

This thesis is about the link between international trade (and the economic fundamentals that determine it) and a country's economic power. In Chapter 1 and 2, I define economic power as the capacity to impose - at little enough cost - harmful trade sanctions on other countries. I study how a "strong" country can use its economic power to influence policy and institutional change in a "weak" country. This foreign influence interacts heavily with domestic politics in chapter 1. Here, I study how an incumbent elite that has a disproportionate stake in gains from trade may use foreign influence to entrench itself in power. I argue that this can help explain the pattern of democratization in Latin America during the Cold War. In Chapter 2, I focus instead on how changes in economic power may lead to institutional change in international relations. I study how a weak country that is under the de jure domination of a strong country may find it easier to re-establish its sovereignty when the economic power of the strong country decreases. This allows me to explain various decolonization episodes in terms of changes in the economic fundamentals (mainly factor endowments) that determine trade, and thus economic power. A different approach to economic power is adopted in Chapter 3. This chapter is about the allocation of oil contracts to multinational companies in developing countries, and how is this determined by inter-governmental lobbying just as well as by economic factors. In this context, the economic power of an oil-importing country is defined as its capacity to lobby an oil-exporting government into a clientelistic allocation of contracts. I construct a model where this capacity is endogenously determined by the structure of the oil trade, by technology, and by the political myopia of the oil-exporting government.

The purpose of this thesis is to examine Britain's trade policy towards Japan between 1950 and 1954. This period was chosen as these were the years when the foundations of Britain's post-war trade and diplomatic relations with Japan were established. Moreover, the study was undertaken to redress the imbalance in scholarly research which is dominated by U.S.-Japan relations. Although the study does not refute the dominant political and economic influence of the United States in Japan, it elucidates the role played by other countries during Japan's early post-war period. The study contends that there was a period in the early fifties when Britain played an influential role in its trade relations with Japan. This was primarily because Japan relied on the sterling area for one-third of its imports. As a banker to the sterling area's dollar reserves, Britain had influence over the area's policy as a whole. In order to understand the reasons why Britain's influence over Japan waned, the thesis examines the sterling payments agreement talks between Japan and Britain. By studying the negotiations behind the agreement it is possible to ascertain the gradual independence of the sterling area countries from British control, and the establishment of their respective bilateral relations with Japan as Britain became sidelined. The other issue examined in the study is Britain's opposition to Japan's entry into the General Agreements on Tariffs and Trade and the factors which led to this policy. The study of the two issues highlights the complexity of the decision-making process in foreign policy formulation. In particular, it indicates the various interests that had to be taken into consideration, such as domestically the views of the textiles industry in Lancashire and those of the various ministries in Whitehall, and internationally Britain's relations with the United States, Japan and the Commonwealth.

In this thesis, I theoretically investigate three related aspects of international trade and economic development. First, I present a model of social learning about the suitability of local conditions for new business ventures and explore its implications for the microeconomic patterns of economic development. I show that: i) firms tend to 'rush' into business ventures with which other firms have had surprising success thus causing development to be 'lumpy'; ii) sufficient business confidence is crucial for fostering economic growth; iii) development may involve wavelike patterns of growth where successive business ventures are first pursued and then given up; iv) there is, nevertheless, no guarantee that firms pursue the best venture even in the long-run. Second, I offer a new explanation for the empirical finding that trade liberalization increases firm productivity. In particular, I develop a simple general equilibrium model of trade in which trade liberalization leads to outsourcing as firms focus on their core competencies in response to tougher competition. Since firms are better at performing tasks the closer they are to their core competencies, this outsourcing increases firm productivity. Third, I propose a novel theory of GATT/WTO negotiations which solves two important problems of the standard terms-of-trade theory. First, it is consistent with the fact that GATT/WTO regulations do not constrain export taxes. Second, it does not rely on the terms-of-trade argument but instead emphasizes market access considerations. To achieve this, I consider trade policy in a 'new trade' environment. I first argue that tariffs are inefficiently high in the non-cooperative equilibrium because countries attempt to improve their relative market access at the expense of other countries. I then show how GATT/WTO negotiations can help countries overcome this inefficiency by providing new rationales for the GATT/WTO principles of reciprocity and nondiscrimination.

The international trade agenda has expanded in recent years to incorporate a wide range of non-trade issues, under pressure from the world's two largest traders, the United States and the European Union. Incorporating policies on issues such as labour standards, the environment and health into trade agreements effectively turns them into 'imagined commodities'. The EU and US are exporting their values with the aim of harmonizing standards in other countries with their own. Like commodities, these standards would not vary in quality between producers. They have value to negotiators as bargaining tools, as policy models, and as instruments for compliance. Although the actual impact of these policies on developing countries is debatable, policymakers and interest groups imagine them to be very important, sometimes important enough to derail trade negotiations. Mixing elite interviews with textual analysis of press releases and key government documents, I examine the use of non-trade policies by US and EU trade negotiators to achieve their secondary goals - whether this is legitimating the policy process, distracting critics, or projecting the image of a benign foreign power. Examining interactions between interest groups and policy officials I find that while US officials use these new issues to benefit domestic constituencies, EU policymakers use them to enhance the EU's international standing in foreign policy. Behind this story are fundamental differences in the way that trade policymakers interact with key diffuse and specific interest groups. The consequences of this expanding trade agenda are a need for better coordination between government departments and agencies, increasing pressure on negotiators to address unfamiliar issues, and uncomfortable questions about the nature of policymaking in a globalized world.

This thesis explores the scope of the autonomy of the states in regulating services trade in areas that concern their public morals and analyses whether the indeterminacy of the public morals exceptions in supranational trade regimes reveals fundamental flaws in the design of those regimes as they apply to trade in services with reference to their experiences with cross-border provision of online gambling services. This interplay and tension between the scope of autonomous areas of the states and organizations since World War II has received considerable scholarly attention. Most of the academic discourse consists of supporting claims for and critical analysis of the constitutionalisation of the supranational legal order and the goals of supranational constitutionalism which typically aim for universality of rules and coherence. The persistent diversity of public morals at the national level is among those national circumstances often perceived as a threat to the constitutionalisation project and thought of as discrediting the achievability of the constitutionalist ideal. On the other hand, proponents of legal pluralism often emphasize the importance of preserving public morals. This thesis finds that, in both the WTO and EU context even if national laws regarding public morals are incoherently pluralistic, it may be possible for supranational regimes to bridge the structural divide between international laws and national laws effectively by developing doctrinal rules and practices that enable them. The analysis based of the online gambling example shows that both organizations have been able to accommodate these divergences without undermining their treaty objectives, mostly owing to their effective judicial review mechanisms which are complemented by, more in the case of EU, other conflict resolution mechanisms be including dialogue and negotiation. Within this framework, this credits constitutional pluralism perspective appears as the appropriate choice both for descriptive and normative purposes.