Vol.:(0123456789) Review of World Economics https://doi.org/10.1007/s10290-019-00346-1 1 3 ORIGINAL PAPER Competing liberalizations: tariffs and trade in the twenty‑first century Jean‑Christophe Bureau 1  · Houssein Guimbard 2  · Sébastien Jean 3 © Kiel Institute 2019 Abstract This paper proposes a unique overview of trade policies since 2001, based on detailed data on tariffs and trade covering 130 countries. It shows that regionalism has delivered limited liberalization, representing only a 0.3 percentage point (p.p.) cut in the worldwide average applied tariff between 2001 and 2013. WTO commit- ments (1.0 p.p. average cut) and unilateral liberalizations on a most-favored-nation basis (1.3 p.p.) mattered far more. The study also shows that GVC participation was a powerful motivation underlying tariff liberalizations, including those carried out at governments’ own initiative. The paper finally assess that recent trade policy changes more than halved the worldwide welfare gains expected from multilateral tariff-cutting. If all PTA negotiations were concluded, gains would fall to one-third of their 2001 level. Keywords Regional trade agreements · Unilateral liberalization · Doha development agenda · WTO · Global value chains JEL Classification F10 · F13 · F14 * Sébastien Jean sebastien.jean@cepii.fr Jean-Christophe Bureau jc.bureau@agroparistech.fr Houssein Guimbard houssein.guimbard@cepii.fr 1 AgroParisTech and CEPII, AgroParisTech–INRA UMR Économie publique, 16 rue Claude Bernard, 75231 Paris Cedex 05, France 2 CEPII, 20 avenue de Ségur, TSA 10726, 75334 Paris Cedex 07, France 3 CEPII and INRA, CEPII 20 avenue de Ségur, TSA 10726, 75334 Paris Cedex 07, France