De Melo, Panagariya and Rodrik's Chapter 6 serves admirably to provide the intellectual background to the pressing issues of regional integration (RI) to which it is devoted. Starting with the celebrated work of Viner (1950) on the ‘customs union issue’ the last four decades have seen an extensive body of research on the theory and experience of ‘partial’ or ‘limited’ free trade on a ‘preferential’ basis. This literature is lucidly surveyed in section 2 of the chapter. Section 3, which is the most original, opens up some very interesting and novel issues concerned with the institutional dimensions of RI. Section 4 presents new empirical results on evaluating the growth effects of several RI efforts. Altogether this is an extremely meaty and substantive study, not so much one chapter by three authors as one chapter by each of three authors, skilfully blended together. Its value to the profession, in my opinion, will not be confined to the participants of the CEPR/World Bank conference alone.

My comments will be in three parts. The first will be addressed to the survey of the literature in section 2 of the chapter. The second will be concerned with the political economy issues raised by section 3 on the institutional dimensions of RI arrangements. The last will consist of some observations on the broader themes of RI and trade policy raised in this and other chapters in the volume.