Third‐country Effects of Regional Trade Agreements

Does regionalism negatively impact non‐members? To answer this question, we examine the effect of regional trade agreements (RTAs) on imports from non‐members and the tariffs that they face. Using data from six RTAs in Latin America and Europe, we do not find evidence that implementation of the regional agreements is associated with trade diversion from third countries to regional members. Using detailed industry data on preference margins and most‐favoured nation (MFN) tariffs for three trade agreements in Latin America over 12 years, we find that greater preference margins do not significantly reduce imports from third countries. We also look at the effect of preferences on external tariffs. We find evidence that preferential tariff reduction tends to precede the reduction of external MFN tariffs in a given sector, offering evidence of tariff complementarity. Overall, the results suggest that regionalism does not significantly harm non‐members.     

The biggest losers (and winners) from US trade liberalization

Many development experts worry that continuing reductions of tariff levels in high-income countries will limit trade flows from developing countries that benefit from preferential trade programs because of ‘preference erosion.’ Using a panel of US import data between the years of 1997 and 2005, I find that reductions in preference margins will significantly diminish imports of some products, particularly from lower-middle and low income countries; for example, a 1% reduction in the US tariff on a product that is currently imported duty-free from developing countries will decrease imports of that product from lower-middle income countries by an average of 2.6%. However, many products produced by developing countries fail to qualify for preferential tariffs, thus a gradual reduction in all US tariff rates is expected to have only a modest impact on trade flows from developing countries.     

Regionalization of Textile Trade: Evidence from the EU,NAFTA, AFTA,and SAPTA

This study examines the integration effects of four regional trading agreements (RTAs) respectively the EU, NAFTA, AFTA, and SAPTA on textile fabric trade from 1990–2005. A modified gravity model for analyzing textile trade was first generated by the fixed-effects method. Regional dummy variables were then used to identify trade creation and trade diversion effects arising from the RTAs. The results indicated that neither trade creation nor trade diversion effects existed in the EU textile trade. Trade creation in terms of imports was identified in NAFTA and SAPTA. There is no indication of shifting textiles trade from the rest of the world to the member countries with the implementation of these two free trade areas (FTAs). On the contrary, trade diversion was recognised some years after AFTA's enactment. It represents a movement towards free trade and is beneficial for the welfare of the world. This article provides empirical evidence on how textiles trade influenced by the formation of RTAs and elimination of quotas on textiles products.     

中美经贸摩擦如何影响了大豆进口——基于贸易转移与创造效应视角

中美经贸摩擦背景下,中国对美国大豆进行反制,加征25%关税,那么,中国对美豆加征关税,会对中国大豆来源布局和产业产生怎样影响。文章利用寡头竞争理论,使用2002年1月~2020年3月中国海关数据,利用进口需求模型(AIDS),分析了加征关税对农产品贸易可能发生的贸易损害、贸易转移和贸易创造效应。实证结果表明,中国对美国大豆并不存在刚性依赖,对美加征关税将发生显著贸易转移效应和创造效应。即对美关税每增加1%,将会导致其对中国大豆出口下降1.29%,对巴西大豆进口上涨0.67%,对阿根廷大豆进口上涨0.66%,对其他国家进口上涨1.03%。中国市场增长和加征关税,将会造成国际大豆贸易创造效应,并激发非传统国家进入大豆贸易市场。     

In Search of Optimised Regional Trade Agreements and Applications to East Asia

We quantitatively analyse the trade effects of enhanced trade facilitation with extended gravity equations. Our findings confirm that RTAs comprised of countries equipped with better trade facilitation are more likely to be trade‐creating, less likely to be trade‐diverting, and are thus more likely to lead the world economy toward global free trade. We also find that (i) the traditional gains from shallow integration through eliminating tariff barriers will be greater for South‐South RTAs in East Asia such as an ASEAN‐China RTA, provided that the tariff‐reducing schedule is strictly fulfilled, (ii) the gains from deeper integration through enhancing trade facilitation will be greater for North‐North RTAs in East Asia such as a Japan‐Korea RTA, and (iii) the gains from a combined trade liberalisation strategy through tariff reductions and enhanced trade facilitation will be greater for North‐South RTAs in East Asia such as a China‐Korea and an ASEAN+3 RTA.     

Do Trade Agreements Increase Food Trade?

In addition to multilateral trade agreements under the World Trade Organization (WTO), the world has seen a remarkable proliferation of regional trade agreements (RTAs) in the last two decades. This study investigates whether these multilateral and regional trade institutions increase food trade and bring the world into a freer flow of food. The gravity model of international trade is used for the empirical analysis. The model is developed in a large panel data setting and attempted to address some potential problems in the estimations including multilateral trade resistances, zero trade values and endogeneity. The results suggest that both the WTO and RTAs have delivered significant positive effects on trade among the participant countries, but not food. Only RTAs are found to have increased food trade among the participant countries. However, although on average the WTO is found to have negative implications on food trade, it facilitates the developing countries more than the developed countries.     

Proliferating Regional Trade Arrangements: Why and Whither?

This paper investigates why regional trade arrangements (RTAs) are proliferating extensively and how the effects of multiple RTAs, by interacting with each other, evolve over time. Our empirical analysis, based on an extended gravity model utilising a large panel dataset of 175 countries from 1948 to 1999, shows that RTAs on average increase global trade by raising intra‐bloc trade without damaging extra‐bloc trade. The net trade effects, however, heavily depend on the types of RTA strategic evolution over time, which we categorise as ‘expansionary’ RTAs, ‘duplicate’ RTAs or ‘overlapping’ RTAs. We find that countries excluded from an RTA can benefit more from duplicating a separate RTA than from joining an existing RTA. This result explains why the number of bilateral trade blocs, rather than the membership size of existing RTAs, is currently exploding. We also find that the net trade‐creating effects of RTAs are substantially lower for countries participating in overlapping RTAs. This result suggests that it is less likely that the currently proliferating RTAs will completely merge and lead the world economy to global free trade. Our empirical results are robust to controlling for the characteristics of countries that may influence the impact of RTAs.     

美国反倾销贸易效应的实证分析

基于美国1998—2007年对外反倾销案的动态面板数据,应用一阶差分广义矩估计方法(SYS-GMM)考察其关税和反倾销对被诉国出口贸易和贸易份额的影响,结果表明:美国关税和反倾销措施在被诉国和被诉行业中都存在贸易破坏效应和贸易转移效应,其中,对中国反倾销的贸易效应最大;比较关税与反倾销措施对被诉国出口的影响,发现美国实施反倾销措施的贸易破坏效应和贸易转移效应远大于关税,表明反倾销措施已经成为美国取代传统关税控制进口的重要贸易政策。     

Effects of the Regional Trading Arrangements on Trade: Evidence from the NAFTA,ANZCER and ASEAN Countries, 1989 – 2000

Using the modified gravity model, this study examines whether the free trade areas of NAFTA, ANZCER and ASEAN would result in trade creation among the member countries and trade diversion with the non-member countries. Further, it applies Linder's income similarity concept to explain the trade patterns in the developed and developing countries within these free trade areas. First, the results suggest that the implementations of the free trade areas have facilitated higher trade among the member countries, particularly the ANZCER and ASEAN countries. However, among all three free trade areas, the formation of the ANZCER free trade area has resulted in trade diversion with non-member countries, whereas that of the ASEAN free trade area has resulted in a trade increase with non-member countries. Surprisingly, the formation of the NAFTA free trade area has no significant effect on trade with non-member countries as their trade flows remain quite low even before its implementation. Second, the result indicates that the trade-enhancing effect of income similarity is confirmed for the developing rather than developed member countries. The developing member countries with similar incomes would trade extensively more with each other. This result can be partly explained by Hanink's income threshold concept, which argues that the income similarity effect is only applicable to developed countries with very small difference in incomes. Given the heterogeneous country sample in this study, the substantial income differences among the developed member countries would probably account for the lack of income similarity effect in these countries.     

Regional Trade Agreements in Mediterranean Area: Econometric Analysis by Static Gravity Model

Since the mid-1980s, there was the rise of a new wave of economic regionalism in the world economy with the spread of free trade agreements (FTAs). A key objective of free trade involves developing commercial exchanges between member countries. The gravity model is a vital tool to explain the bilateral trade data against the variables of the relative size of the pair of countries implicated in the trade: distance, common border, and language and models for each of the FTAs. This article focuses on studying the influence of FTAs in the Mediterranean countries in which we integrate the role of regional dummy EU (15), EMU (euro zone), the AMU and AGADIR agreement in trade flows. The use of regional variables are designed to determine whether its FTAs contribute to the creation of trade diversion. This study examines a cross-section and panel of 27 countries for 1980–2011. The results show the existence of a strong relationship between the factors of FTAs and trade flows.     

Does Aid for Trade Enhance Export Performance? Investigating the Infrastructure Channel

There are few empirical studies assessing the effectiveness of aid for trade as regards trade performance. Furthermore, existing work does not test which are the channels through which aid for trade has an impact on trade performance. We address this question using a two‐step empirical analysis. Relying on an export performance model, we first test whether institutions and infrastructure, our two potential channels of transmission, are significant determinants of export performance. Second, we test the impact of aid for trade sectoral flows on the previously detected determinants of export performance. We show, as part of the first step, that the infrastructure channel is a highly significant determinant of export performance, whereas the institutional channel turns out to have a limited positive impact on developing countries’ export performance. Furthermore, we show, from the second step, that aid for infrastructure, once instrumented, has a strong and positive impact on the infrastructure level. As a result, we find that a ten per cent increase in aid for infrastructure commitments per capita in developing countries leads to an average 2.34 per cent increase in the exports over GDP ratio. It is also equivalent to a 2.71 per cent reduction in tariff and nontariff barriers. These results highlight the high potential impact of aid for trade on developing countries’ export performance throughout the infrastructure channel.     

Trade Liberalisation and Economic Performance: Theory and Evidence for Developing Countries

The last five decades have witnessed a profound evolution of economic policy in developing countries, particularly in the case of trade strategies. Both internal, as well as external, factors have prompted the need for more outward‐oriented (or liberalised) trade policy regimes. The creation of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) in 1947 and the World Trade Organisation (WTO) in 1995 have been important driving forces for free trade. Since then, the major quantitative barriers to trade, i.e. tariffs and non‐tariff barriers (quotas, licences and technical specifications, among other restrictions), have substantially been reduced or dismantled. Also, the progress towards more liberalised trade regimes, mainly in developing countries, has been manifested in the trade and development literature. Major studies suggest that the performance of more outward‐oriented economies is superior to that of those countries pursuing more inward‐looking trade practices (Greenaway and Nam, 1988; Dollar, 1992; Sachs and Warner, 1995; and Rodríguez and Rodrik, 2000). Recent developments in the international trade literature focus on the potential dynamic effects of trade liberalisation, i.e. simplification of tariff structures and elimination of non‐tariff barriers, in reducing the incentives to rent seeking and in accelerating the flow of technical knowledge from the world market. Moreover, there have been important advances regarding the study of trade liberalisation and its impact on exports, imports and the balance of payments, largely neglected in the literature, often driven by supply‐side considerations.     

对发展中国家的特殊和差别待遇——以WTO有关区域贸易安排的规定为视角

特殊与差别待遇,是世贸组织处理发展中成员方经济发展问题时必须遵循的一项基本原则。但是,世贸组织有关区域贸易协定的现有规范却缺乏对发展中国家的特殊考虑,这不利于发展中国家参与区域经济合作,促进其经济发展。多哈部长宣言授权成员方在区域贸易协定的谈判中考虑发展问题,但是发达成员和发展中成员在此问题上存在争议,尚未达成共识。发展中国家应当积极参与谈判,争取保留授权条款,同时在24条中引入特殊和差别待遇。作为交换条件,发展中国家可以接受就南南型区域贸易协定向世贸组织进行通知并由其进行审查。     

Non‐Tariff Measures,Specific Trade Concerns and Tariff Reduction

This paper studies the determinants of the recent proliferation of Specific Trade Concerns raised at the WTO on non‐tariff trade measures (NTMs), with a focus on sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) and technical barriers to trade (TBTs). Even though NTMs are imposed de jure to protect consumers from unhealthy products, they increase trade costs de facto. So, when tariff protection lowers, NTMs become effective barriers to trade and the exporting countries can complain at the dedicated committee at the WTO (STCs). Therefore, we study whether STCs are raised by exporting countries as a consequence of tariff reductions in importing countries, that is when non‐tariff measures become barriers to trade. Using a recent database on STCs over the period 1996–2010, we find empirical evidence that SPS and TBT concerns are raised by exporting country as a consequence of importer's tariff cut.     

Free Trade Areas in East Asia: Discriminatory or Non‐discriminatory?

The debates on regional trade arrangements in East Asia focus on whether the RTAs can be net trade creating or diverting, and whether they impede multilateral trade liberalisation or not. This paper attempts to answer these questions by quantitatively estimating the economic impact of possible East Asian free trade areas based on a bilateral gravity model, and evaluating the main characteristics of the proposed FTAs. We find that the trade creation effect expected from the proposed East Asian FTAs such as a China‐Japan‐Korea or an ASEAN plus three (China, Japan, Korea) FTA will be significant enough to overwhelm the trade diversion effect. We also judge that East Asian FTAs will likely be a building block for a global free trade.     

浅析非洲经济一体化的贸易创造与贸易转移效应

在概述战后非洲一体化发展总体状况的基础上,通过构建理论模型,利用实证分析方法,选择南部非洲发展共同体为研究对象对南部非洲发展共同体的贸易创造和贸易转移问题进行探讨,从而为客观评估非洲经济一体化进程中的静态福利效应提供一种参考。研究结果表明,南部非洲发展共同体并没有发生明显的贸易创造及贸易转移效应,成员国从一体化中获得的福利收益是有限的。     

Trade diversion and declining tariffs: evidence from Mercosur

This paper empirically examines the alternative posed by Richardson [J. Intern. Econ. 34 (1993) 39] to the traditional view that trade integration may exacerbate inefficiencies. Richardson's hypothesis boldly predicts that trade diversion (and trade creation) may actually cause tariffs to decline! The hypothesis is fundamentally attributable to the presence of a political component in the governments' objective functions. A cross-sectionally rich data set on trade and tariffs from the Mercosur-pact countries, primarily Argentina, is used. The evidence yields surprising conclusions about the validity of endogenous tariff determination in models of trade integration.     

Preference Erosion,Government Revenues and Non‐tariff Trade Barriers

Developing countries benefiting from developed country unilateral trade preferences fear that Doha Round tariff cuts will erode the value of those preferences. That these programmes confer significant benefits, however, is not clear. Studies indicate that the impact of preference erosion would be minimal for most developing countries. But for a small subset of middle‐income and least‐developed countries, concern may be warranted. WTO members, should address affected countries’ concerns, perhaps by tailoring WTO tariff negotiations to lessen adjustment pressures and providing development assistance. Developing countries also are anxious that lower tariffs will reduce government revenues. Dependence on tariff revenue is diminishing and trade liberalisation need not result in lower total tax revenues or even lower customs revenues. Much depends on a country's current tariff and trade regime, its tax structure and its overall economic structure. At some point, a country does need to broaden its tax base and look to other revenue sources to offset declining tariff revenues. Tax reform, therefore, complements trade reform. A third area of developing country concern is non‐tariff barriers (NTBs), which may limit market access even after tariffs are reduced. Despite prior WTO work in this area, NTBs remain a thorny issue for all WTO members.     

ASEAN-India Free Trade Agreement: Evaluating Trade Creation and Trade Diversion Effects

The present study attempts to provide insight into the trade creation and trade diversion effects of ASEAN-India Free Trade Agreement in goods, which came into force in 2010. The paper applies a theoretically consistent gravity model and uses empirically robust procedures such as ordinary least squares and pseudo-Poisson maximum likelihood in order to analyze the ex post effects of the agreement at an aggregate level. The results reveal that standard gravity variables are statistically significant and report expected signs, yet a reduction in export flows has been observed following the implementation of the free trade agreement, giving rise to pure trade diversion effects.     

Impact of RTA and PTA on Bangladesh’s Export: Application of a Gravity Model

As part of its growth strategy, Bangladesh instituted a trade liberalization process in the early 1990s which gained momentum in later years. Trade grew from 24.4 to 45% of GDP between 1980–81 and 2007–08, an indicator of increased liberalization as well as the growing importance of the external sector in Bangladesh. Apart from its unilateral liberalization, Bangladesh participates in three different regional trade agreements (RTAs): the South Asian Free Trade Agreement (SAFTA), the Asia Pacific Trade Agreement (APTA) and the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multisectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation Free Trade Area (BIMSTEC FTA). In addition, Bangladesh signed preferential trade agreements (PTAs) with the member countries of the Developing 8 (D8). Because of the growing importance of RTAs, this study investigates their contribution to the export flows from Bangladesh using the gravity model that has become the primary tool for estimating the trade effects of regional integration. Regression results of bilateral exports for 40 countries from 1992–2009 indicate two crucial aspects. Firstly, all the RTAs consistently maintained statistically significant negative signs, except the BIMSTEC FTA and SAFTA, which showed insignificantly positive and insignificantly negative effects respectively. Secondly, the intensity of negative effects and the level of significance have shown a declining trend as the status of those blocs has changed from political or economic cooperation agreements to preferential agreements and from preferential agreements to free trade agreements. Thus, the intensity of tariff liberalization and the degree of sectoral coverage seem to be the important determinants of the RTAs’ performance. Therefore, experts expect that full-fledged implementation of FTA provisions and the elimination of all tariff and non-tariff barriers might result in a higher degree of integration.