Reciprocal Trade Agreements in Gravity Models: A Meta-Analysis

The gravity model is a workhorse tool applicable in a wide range of empirical fields. It is regularly used to estimate the impact of reciprocal trade agreements (RTAs) on trade flows between partners. The studies report very different estimates since there is a significant difference in datasets, sample sizes, and independent variables. This paper combines, explains, and summarizes a large number of results using a meta-analysis approach. We provide pooled estimates, obtained from fixed and random effects models of the RTAs' effect size on bilateral trade: the hypothesis that there is no effect of RTAs on trade is robustly rejected at standard significance levels. The information collected on each estimate allows us to test the sensitivity of the results to alternative specifications and differences in the control variables considered, as well as the impact of the publication selection process.     

Regional Integration Agreements,Trade Flows and Economic Crisis: A Static and Dynamic Gravity Model

Regional trade agreements (RTA) strengthening is a crucial component of the contemporary global economy. These agreements are considered beneficial in many senses (economics: trade, FDI, growth, etc.) and are a stabilizing factor in international relations (politics). In this paper, I study the effects of RTAs on exports between members and non-members taking into account the Viner specification. I also try to estimate the effect of the recent economic crisis on the export flows and achievement of RTAs. I use a static and dynamic gravity model to 40 countries belonging to 6 heterogeneous RTAs for the period 1980–2011. This model is estimated taking into account the latest estimation techniques that treats endogeneity effects of integration and the existence of dynamic effect.     

移民网络、国际贸易与区域贸易协定

本文从移民网络的角度探讨了区域贸易协定(FTA)缔结的动因问题,提出并证明了"移民网络促进FTA缔结"这一假说,并发现移民网络因素的加入可以将既有FTA缔结动因相关研究的模型预测准确率提升约4%,具有重要的意义。进一步的机制检验发现,移民网络主要通过促进双边贸易流来提升两国FTA的签订概率,表现为"移民网络—国际贸易—FTA缔结"这一核心发生机制。本文拓展性的细化研究还发现,无论从时间趋势或FTA缔结数量而言,移民网络对FTA缔结所起到的促进作用都呈现出边际递减规律;"移民网络—国际贸易—FTA缔结"机制在"南-北"国家对组合中会得到增强,但在"北-北"国家对组合中的表现较弱。本文的结论意味着,移民网络是发展中国家参与区域经济合作的重要资源,在当前贸易自由化多边进程受阻、逆全球化思潮涌动、国际秩序和规则面临重塑的背景下,充分发挥和利用"移民红利",对我国FTA战略的推进及世界FTA领域"中国范本"的探索有重要意义。     

论区域协定和服务贸易的政策问题

原载:《世界银行政策研究工作报告》第2852号,002年6月一、前言有关货物贸易一体化协议的成本和收益的文献可谓众多,但分析服务贸易中这类协议的涵义的文献却几乎没有①,这是令人感到奇怪的,因为几乎每一部主要区域协定都涉及到服务领域。人们不禁要问:是否因为服务贸易是如此的不同。以至我们必须修改迄今为止适用于货物贸易领域的结论呢?尤其是,如果一国的自由化的服务贸易在区域的环境下比在多边环境下更快会出现什么情况?要是一国获得优先的国外货物市场准入并从中受益,那么是否表明该国理应以国内市场服务领域的优先准入来交换呢?我们…     

Why are Trade Agreements Regional?

This paper shows how distance may be used to coordinate on a unique equilibrium in which trade agreements are regional. Trade agreement formation is modeled as coalition formation. In a standard trade model with no distance between countries a familiar problem of coordination failure occurs, giving rise to multiple equilibria; any one of many possible trade agreements can form. With distance between countries, regional trade agreements generate larger rent‐shifting effects than nonregional agreements. Countries use these effects to coordinate on a unique equilibrium.     

International Trade, Regional Free Trade Agreements, and Economic Development

In 1991, Krugman illustrated that natural (regional) free trade agreements (FTAs) are likely to be welfare-enhancing if intercontinental costs are prohibitively high, but are likely to be welfare-reducing if such costs are zero. In 1995, Frankel, Stein and Wei extended the analysis to consider positive but nonprohibitive transport costs. This paper extends these models to allow for countries of different economic size. Large countries will tend to have higher relative wages, influencing the relative gains and losses from natural FTAs. For even modest differences in size, intracontinental FTAs are welfare-enhancing for larger countries, regardless of strong preferences for diversity or low intercontinental transport costs.     

Tax Policies,Regional Trade Agreements and Foreign Direct Investment: A Welfare Analysis

In this paper, we develop a partial equilibrium three‐country model to examine the relationship between regional trade agreements (RTAs) and foreign direct investment (FDI) in an environment with double taxation. Our analysis shows that FDI is welfare‐improving for at least one or both of the two regional countries if wage asymmetry is significantly large. FDI and an RTA are also welfare‐improving for the high‐wage country and the region if the wage differential is not small. We also examine the role of repatriation taxes in affecting the determination of firm location under an RTA. Our results suggest that the signing of an RTA may induce relocation from the high‐wage country to the low‐wage country unless an increase in the repatriation tax rate also occurs.     

Free-Trade Agreements in a Model of Trade,Migration and Politics

This paper uses a probabilistic voting model to investigate voting for a free-trade agreement between a labor-abundant country and a capital-abundant country. Migration from the labor-abundant country to the capital-abundant country increases the probability of a free-trade agreement, with lower migration costs leading to more migration and a higher free-trade probability. On the other hand, if a lower probability of free trade is caused by an increased voter bias against free-trade candidates, then there is less migration. A dynamic extension of the model is also investigated.     

Trade Creation and Diversion Effects of Europe's Regional Liberalization Agreements

After a short review of recent developments in gravity modeling and an overview of the liberalization agreements in Europe, this paper measures the trade creation and diversion effects of major European agreements based on the results of a correctly specified triple-indexed gravity model with bilateral fixed effects. Discussion of the resulting trade creation and diversion focuses on the role of partner and non-partner country characteristics including size and relative factor endowments, as well as date, reciprocity, industry coverage, and rate of liberalization characteristics of the agreement.     

区域服务贸易协定如何影响服务贸易流量?——基于增加值贸易的研究视角

本文从增加值贸易的角度,基于WWZ(2013)方法测算了全球40个经济体的服务增加值贸易水平,利用WTO的区域服务贸易协定数据库构造了衡量协定开放度的服务行业覆盖率指标,运用Anderson&van Wincoop(2003)引力模型分析框架和泊松拟极大似然(PPML)估计技术,研究了区域服务贸易协定对服务出口的差异化促进效应。结果表明,区域服务贸易协定对服务总值和增加值出口均有显著的促进作用,且对于开放水平越高的协定,这种正面促进效应越强;但协定对外国增加值出口的影响程度大于国内增加值出口。进一步地,本文还对各国服务出口的结构特征做了分组分析,并考察了缔约环境异质性对区域服务贸易协定的服务出口促进效应的不同影响机制。本文为中国进一步推进区域服务自由化,提升在服务贸易全球价值链分工中的地位提供了实证支持和政策参考。     

Free Trade Agreements and the Prospects for Regional Integration in East Asia

Trade policy in East Asia has switched from non-discriminatory unilateral liberalization, reinforced by General Agreements on Tariffs and Trade/World Trade Organization (GATT/WTO) commitments, to discriminatory free trade agreements (FTA). The paper surveys the FTA activity of the major regional players: China, the ASEAN countries, Japan, and South Korea. It concludes that emerging FTAs are weak and partial. A hub-and-spoke pattern of dirty FTAs will not drive regional economic integration or further integration with the global economy. Rather, it could be a force of regional economic disintegration – especially if the multilateral trading system weakens further. At the same time, FTA activity is distracting attention from the WTO, and, more fundamentally, from unilateral liberalization and domestic structural reforms. Hence, East Asian trade policies need to be rebalanced, with better-quality FTAs and more focus on the WTO. However, more important than the WTO and FTAs is a fresh spurt of unilateral liberalization and structural reform outside trade negotiations.     

Trade Creation Effects of Regional Trade Agreements: Tariff Reduction versus Non‐tariff Barrier Removal

This study uses the most disaggregated tariff line‐level trade data in a large number of countries in the world to empirically decompose the trade creation effects of regional trade agreements (RTAs) into those owing to tariff reduction and those owing to non‐tariff barrier (NTB) removal. Specifically, utilizing our detailed dataset, we employ the standard gravity equation and identify those effects by estimating the trade creation effects of RTAs for ineligible and eligible products for RTA preferential schemes separately. Our major findings are as follows. First, for the whole sample, there are significantly positive trade creation effects owing to tariff reduction while the effects for NTB removal are weak. Second, the trade creation effects of tariff reduction and NTB removal are substantially large in the case of trade among low‐income countries but weak among high‐income countries.     

Bilateral versus Multilateral Free Trade Agreements: A Welfare Analysis

Why is a proliferation of bilateral free trade agreements (FTAs) between certain types of countries observed instead of progress in attaining global free trade through a multilateral FTA? This paper answers this question by exploring the enforceability of different types of FTAs through comparing minimum discount factors that are necessary to sustain them in an infinitely repeated game framework. The authors search for the globally welfare maximizing trade agreements that are sustainable under different conditions. The results depict that transportation costs, differences in country sizes and comparative advantages are all obstacles for having a multilateral FTA. Accordingly, international development policies conducted for the removal of such obstacles should be the main goal toward achieving a multilateral FTA, which is shown to be the first‐best solution to the maximization problem of global welfare.     

Trade Creation,Replacement, and Destruction in Regional Trade Agreements: Micro‐level Evidence for the UK*

Empirical questions surrounding the effect of regional trade agreements on international trade have typically been answered with reference to macro‐level gravity equations. Prominent within this has been whether they create or divert trade. In this paper, motivated by the recent development of theories of export‐platform FDI, we use micro‐level data to explore the part of trade diversion that follows from FDI. Using information on acquisition FDI in the UK manufacturing sector between 1988 and 1998 we find evidence of trade creation, replacement, and destruction from FDI external and internal to the EU.     

Trade Agreements and Trade Opportunities: A Flexible Approach for Modeling Australian Export and Import Elasticities

Patterns of trade have changed enormously over the last 30 years, particularly due to the economic emergence of several Asian countries. With the increasing international tendency for bilateral preferential trade agreements, it is important for countries to be aware of trade substitution possibilities. This paper estimates import and export price elasticities for Australia and its major trading partners in Europe and Asia, 1958 to 2002, using a fully flexible version of the Symmetric Normalized Quadratic aggregator function. Imports and exports are disaggregated into six regions, covering 17 countries. Our results illuminate the (changing) substitution and complementarity patterns for Australian foreign trade, highlighting trading opportunities in the face of a changing international environment.     

Regional Trade Agreements and Cross‐border Lobbying: Empirical Evidence from the Canada–US Free Trade Agreement Negotiations

This paper documents participation of special interest groups in negotiations of the Canada–US Free Trade Agreement. Using data on the tariff reduction schedules mandated by the agreement, it shows that industries represented by strong lobby groups were faced with more favorable tariff reduction paths in both countries: phase‐out periods were longer at home and shorter in the partner country. This result provides evidence on the involvement of industry lobbying in negotiation of regional trade agreements and suggests that countries negotiating trade agreements are responsive to the interests of lobbying groups from across the border. Both results provide important implications for the political economy theory of trade agreements.     

The WTO and Regional Trading Agreements

This article describes the spread of regional trading arrangements, the rules within the WTO for regional trading arrangements and the possiblility of changing these rules.     

Bilateral Trade Agreements and the Feasibility of Multilateral Free Trade

We studied how the pursuit of bilateral free‐trade agreements (FTAs) affects the likelihood of achieving multilateral free trade. We derive and compare the stable Nash equilibria of two games of trade liberalization: in the FTA game, each country can either form an FTA with one of its trading partners or both of them or none of them, whereas in the (restricted) No FTA game, purely bilateral FTAs are not permitted. The major result is that there exist circumstances under which the freedom to pursue (discriminatory) bilateral FTAs is necessary for achieving multilateral free trade.     

Endogenous Free Trade Agreements and Foreign Lobbying

This paper assesses the political viability of free trade agreements (FTAs) in the presence of lobbying by organized foreign interest groups. The assessment is based on a model in which external tariffs and the decision to form an FTA are endogenously determined. The findings demonstrate that, in the presence of an organized lobby group in a prospective partner country, an FTA may initiate an increase in the level of protection against imports from third countries and impede trade with non‐member countries. Further, this study finds that a foreign lobby may encourage the local government to enter a welfare‐reducing trade‐diverting FTA. Finally, this paper shows that an FTA increases the lobbying power of the organized lobby groups of the member countries, which can potentially obstruct the viability of welfare‐improving multilateral trade liberalization.