Regionalism became a major issue in international commercial diplomacy during the 1990s. The European Union's 1992 programme, the formation of NAFTA, and attempts to form or strengthen regional trading arrangements in South America, southern Africa, and Southeast Asia were viewed as a challenge to the nondiscrimination principle which was the cornerstone of the postwar international trading system. The Economics of Regional Trading Arrangements provides a
unified analysis of policies which discriminate among trading partners, combining in roughly equal proportions history, theory, and a review of empirical studies.