Trade liberalization has swept over developing countries over the past few decades and its results have been argued about for the last few years. This important new book presents useful insights into the experience of APEC countries that have gone through numerous liberalizing reforms in recent times. Students, researchers and readers generally interested in APEC economies will find this book a good addition to their bookshelves.

Trade and investment liberalization under Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) looked to be going well in the mid 1990s. However, the subsequent Early Voluntary Sectoral Liberalization (EVSL) initiative, which was an ambitious attempt to stimulate comprehensive regional liberalization by accelerating tariff reduction in selected sectors, turned out to be a failure. This book analyses the attempted trade liberalizations under the APEC framework by conducting case studies on policy processes of six members. Using the 'two-level game' model as an analytical framework, the volume is an incredibly useful tool for understanding trade liberalization and its implementation. An impressive cohort of contributors come together in this wonderful collection to provide a book that will be of great use to students and academics involved with international trade and economic integration as well of being a useful reference tool for policy-makers across the world.

Both international trade and investment by East Asian countries have become significantly regionalized. To support this development further, efforts for regional integration have flourished in the forms of bilateral and regional free trade agreements and the ASEAN+3 and East Asia Summit processes, among many others. This book is a compilation of papers and discussions originally presented at the international symposium held during the recent global financial crisis. The symposium aimed to shed light not only on the usual economic aspect but also on other aspects of the multidimensional phenomenon called "regional integration." Thus, in this volume the authors explore the relationship between the U.S. influence and East Asian regionalism, the characteristics of East Asian integration, and the politics of inclusion/exclusion in the integration process. In addition, they point out some "missing links" in integration efforts such as cooperation in the areas of logistics, finance, trade in services, infrastructure and human resource movement. Since the global financial crisis did not deter integration efforts (rather, it has encouraged them), this book serves as a guide for future East Asian integration in terms of what to expect and what is to be done.