Grossman, G.M.2019-04-032019-04-0320162214-3122,http://hdl.handle.net/10673/521In this chapter, I review the literature on governments’ motivations for negotiating and joining international trade agreements. I discuss both normative explanations for trade agreements and explanations based on political-economy concerns. Most of the chapter focuses on the purpose of multilateral agreements, but I do discuss briefly the reasons we might see governments forming preferential or regional trade agreements that exclude some countries.enTrade agreements,Trade pacts,International cooperation,Multilateralism,Regionalism