Deep Integration Agreements

Informations projet

DIA

N° de convention de subvention: 819394

DOI

10.3030/819394

Projet clôturé

Date de signature de la CE 17 Decembre 2018

Date de début 1 Janvier 2019

Date de fin 30 Juin 2025

Financé au titre de

• EXCELLENT SCIENCE - European Research Council (ERC)

Coût total

€ 1 433 280,63

Contribution de l’UE

€ 1 433 280,63

Coordonné par

UNIVERSITAT ZURICH
Switzerland

Periodic Reporting for period 4 - DIA (Deep Integration Agreements)

Période du rapport: 2023-07-01 au 2025-06-30

Résumé du contexte et des objectifs généraux du projet

This project set out to improve our understanding of so-called deep integration agreements. Unlike ordinary trade agreements, which mainly reduce tariffs, deep integration agreements reach much further by trying to align countries in areas such as investor rights, regulation, and intellectual property. Prominent examples include the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) negotiated between the European Union and the United States, and the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) between the European Union and Canada.

These agreements are highly controversial. When TTIP and CETA were under negotiation, hundreds of thousands of people protested in European cities. Many feared that such agreements would mainly benefit big business at the expense of society—for example by giving excessive rights to foreign investors, undermining environmental regulation, or making it harder for developing countries to gain access to life-saving medicines. Yet despite their prominence in public debate, deep integration agreements had received little attention in academic research.

The ERC grant allowed me to launch a broad research programme that has helped establish deep integration as a serious field of study. The research addressed three of the most controversial aspects of these agreements. First, on investor protection, we studied whether investor–state dispute settlement systems give undue influence to private investors, and explained why trade and investment agreements differ in their design. Second, on regulatory cooperation, we examined how industry lobbying influences international rule-making, and showed that the impact on society depends on whether industries across countries share common or conflicting interests. Third, on intellectual property rights, we developed the first quantitative framework to assess the global effects of the WTO’s TRIPS agreement, showing that its distributional consequences between developed and developing economies are substantial.

The grant also supported a team of young researchers who extended the project’s scope. Their work explored how trade liberalization interacts with political distortions in developing countries, how gender relations shape the political backlash against globalization, how migration restrictions affect labor reallocation in China, and how lobbying influences U.S. trade agreements. Together, these projects broadened the methodological base of the research and created bridges between economics, law, and political science.

Overall, the project significantly advanced knowledge on deep integration agreements, raised the visibility of these issues in academic and policy debates, and trained the next generation of researchers working at the frontier of international trade and political economy.

Travail effectué depuis le début du projet jusqu’à la fin de la période considérée dans le rapport et principaux résultats atteints jusqu’à présent

Over the course of the grant, the project carried out a comprehensive research program on deep integration agreements. The work closely followed the original plan while adapting to new intellectual opportunities and policy debates. Research was organized around three pillars—investor protection, regulatory cooperation, and intellectual property rights—supplemented by related projects on industrial policy, lobbying, labor markets, and political distortions.

In investor protection, we explained why investment agreements rely on investor–state dispute settlement while trade agreements rely on state–state procedures, and identified the conditions under which these provisions may or may not be justified (Journal of International Economics, 2023).

In regulatory cooperation, we developed new political economy models that show how lobbying pressures shape international agreements. We demonstrated that the effects of regulatory cooperation depend on whether producers across countries have aligned or conflicting interests, with major implications for welfare. These findings were published in the American Economic Review (2023), with a broader overview appearing in the Annual Review of Economics (2021).

In intellectual property rights, we developed the first quantitative framework combining trade and growth theory to assess international patent agreements. Our analysis shows that potential global gains from cooperation are large, but that the TRIPS Agreement has generated significant distributional tensions between developed and developing economies. The paper is currently under revise-and-resubmit at the American Economic Review.

Satellite work further extended the project’s scope. A paper in the Journal of Public Economics (2023) analyzed subsidy competition in the United States, providing new insights into industrial policy. Team members produced high-profile outputs on trade liberalization and political distortions (American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, 2025), gender and industrial decline (American Journal of Political Science, R&R), lobbying and trade agreements (Economic Journal, 2025), labor reallocation in China (International Economic Review, 2025), and labor market power in global sourcing (working paper). These contributions illustrate the breadth of high-quality research enabled by the ERC grant.

Exploitation and dissemination. The results were disseminated widely in academic and policy circles. The work was presented at leading universities (Harvard, MIT, Stanford, Yale, Princeton, Columbia, Bocconi, LMU Munich, University of Vienna, University of Copenhagen, Paris School of Economics, Graduate Institute Geneva, among others) and at major conferences (National Bureau of Economic Research, Centre for Economic Policy Research). Collectively, these venues provided unparalleled visibility among both scholars and policymakers. In addition, insights developed during the project informed my work as Chief Economist of the World Trade Organization (2023–2025), where I engaged governments on industrial subsidies and other deep integration issues.

Overall, the project has delivered on its objectives, established deep integration as a serious field of academic research, produced publications in leading journals across economics and political science, and ensured that the results are visible and relevant well beyond academia.

Progrès au-delà de l’état des connaissances et impact potentiel prévu (y compris l’impact socio-économique et les conséquences sociétales plus larges du projet jusqu’à présent)

The project advanced the state of the art by helping to establish deep integration as a recognized field of research. At the outset, leading journals had paid little attention to questions of investor protection, regulatory cooperation, or intellectual property rights. The project filled this gap with top publications that developed new law–economics models of investor protection, introduced political economy frameworks for regulatory cooperation, and created the first quantitative model to evaluate international intellectual property agreements.

The grant also broadened the research frontier by supporting work that linked trade with political science, labor economics, and industrial policy. This has resulted in publications in leading economics and political science journals and demonstrates the lasting impact of the research group created under the ERC grant.

University of Zurich