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.     

Regional Trade Agreements and the Pattern of Trade: A Networks Approach

This paper uses a complex network approach for the analysis trade effects from regional trade agreements on world trade flows. We use bilateral trade data to compute the network community structure for every year between 1970 and 2000. We compare this to null community structures that emerge from various models based on regional and geographical classifications, the implementation of RTA's and gravity models of trade. Our results show that RTA formation appears to have a cyclical pattern on the world trade network community structure. We document periods where bilateral trade flows and the structure of the world trade network are consistent with those predicted by formation of RTAs. These cycles occur in 1980–86 and 1990–96. At the same time, we document periods in which the pattern in the world trade network is not explained by RTA formation. Two periods, 1986–90 and 1997–2000, show a pattern of bilateral trade flows that moves away from the prediction that results from assuming RTA formation as the driving force in the determination of the world trade network structure. Factors contributing to the latter parts of the cycle during our sample period include formation of regional trade networks in East Asia that account for a significant portion of world trade but are not formalised by RTAs in force.     

区域贸易协定与出口的二元边际:基于中国—东盟自贸区的微观数据分析

以周边国家为基础加快实施自由贸易区战略是未来中国对外经济政策的重点.本文使用CEPII-BACI数据库1995～2012年中国对东盟各国的HS-6位数产品的出口贸易数据,探究了中国—东盟自贸区建立前后中国对东盟出口的二元边际结构及其决定因素.研究发现,中国对东盟的出口以集约边际为主,但自贸区的成立有效地促进了扩展边际的提升;中国—东盟自贸区对二元边际都有促进作用,但对集约边际的影响更大.结果表明,中国的自贸区战略仍处于浅度一体化的阶段,应该提高合作水平,向深度一体化发展.     

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。     

Sequencing Regional Trade Integration and Cooperation Agreements

Trade integration agreements and other international cooperation agreements have proliferated in recent years around the world. Rather than being spurred by exogenous forces alone, the two phenomena are likely to be both path‐dependent and endogenous to one another. However, the theoretical and empirical understanding of the relationships between agreements forged in different domains of cooperation remains nascent. The purpose of this paper is to describe a new, extensive dataset on international agreements that can be employed to start mending the gaps in the literature, and to develop ‘best practices’ of sequencing international agreements to obtain higher pay‐offs from cooperation. Of particular interest here is the relationship between trade integration and other cooperation agreements; the data provide preliminary grounds for hypothesising that trade integration agreements can be a particularly likely catalyst for further cooperation between states.     

区域贸易协定及其新近发展的多维解析

新近区域贸易协定正在经历重大变革。“区域”不再拘泥于传统物理的、政治的和经济的范畴,而延伸至更广阔的领域。“贸易协定”的内容早已跨越“贸易”领域,而广泛涉及到投资、金融、环境、劳工等经济领域和社会领域。本文运用政治、经济和法律等多元开放的研究视角,探寻区域贸易协定蓬勃发展的原因,并对其新近发展趋势作出了合理预测。     

Supplementary Trade Benefits of Multi-Memberships in African Regional Trade Agreements

ABSTRACT

Few papers have investigated the trade effects of multi-memberships of Regional Trade Agreements (RTAs), but none has done this in an Africa-wide manner. This paper investigates the supplementary trade effects of multi-memberships of RTAs after controlling for single-membership for all African RTAs. We use (1) overall number of RTAs by country pair; (2) dummies of number of RTAs; and (3) number of RTA memberships by countries within each RTA grouping, in a panel of 53 African countries from 1995 to 2014. The gravity models are estimated with the Eicker-White robust covariance Poisson Pseudo-Maximum Likelihood (PPML) which is superior to previous ones. All the estimates concur that multi-memberships have significant additional intra-Africa trade benefits which increase with the number of memberships. The implication is that although RTAs enhance trade in Africa, it is only a second-best to a complete integration of the African continent. A complete dismantling of politically induced trade barriers and even inter-RTA boundaries within Africa will yield significant intra-Africa trade benefits. The results support the ongoing efforts in Africa in pursuing a “one Africa” vision. Such efforts have to transcend regional integration and pursue the ideal of an integrated Africa for the full trade benefits to be realized.     

区域自由贸易协议与多边贸易体制的发展

区域自由贸易协议作为一种对多边贸易体制产生影响的重要因素,它的发展在GATT时期就已经受到缔约方全体的规制。随着WTO多哈回合谈判议程的停滞,区域自由贸易安排开始活跃。这种区域自由贸易安排,根据其发展的特点,对多边贸易体制的影响存在两面性:在短期内可能会为多边贸易谈判提供协调意见的平台,但是这种区域自由贸易协议的长期运行也会割裂多边贸易体制的统一性,加深经济社会发展不平衡的状况。控制区域自由贸易的消极影响,必须调整WTO的区域自由贸易规则,使区域自由贸易安排能够在多边贸易体制的框架内运行。     

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.     

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。     

Regional Trade Agreements versus Global Trade Liberalisation: Implications for a Small Island Developing State

This study undertakes an empirical investigation of the macroeconomic and sectoral impacts of two forms of regional trade agreements vis‐à‐vis global trade liberalisation on a small island country, using Fiji as a case study. In order to capture the feedback effects of such a complex set of policies, we employ a dynamic computable general equilibrium model of the Fijian economy to investigate (i) the impact of the Pacific Island Countries Trade Agreement (PICTA), (ii) the impact of PICTA, the Pacific Agreement for Closer Economic Relations (PACER), and the Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs), (iii) the impact of full tariff liberalisation (i.e. tariff removal only), and (iv) the impact of full trade liberalisation, with removal of both tariff and non‐tariff barriers. While PICTA consistently provides the least benefits across a range of macroeconomic indicators including real output, welfare, trade volumes and employment, full trade liberalisation involving the removal of tariff and non‐tariff barriers provides the greatest benefits compared to the other scenarios in terms of real output. However, the latter scenario is outperformed by PICTA, PACER, the EPAs and full tariff liberalisation in terms of welfare effects, trade volumes and employment. The policy implications hold important lessons for developing countries considering trade liberalisation.     

区域贸易协定中透明度机制对出口贸易的影响

本文利用39个经济体(34个OECD国家和5个主要新兴经济体)与59个贸易伙伴之间签署的50份区域贸易协定,检验区域贸易协定中透明度条款设定对双边贸易的影响,结果表明:区域贸易协定中透明度条款的设定对双边贸易增加值有异质性影响;制度质量的改善能够显著增加双边出口贸易增加值,而且制度质量的提高还会提升透明度对双边贸易增加值的促进作用;在透明度承诺较高的状况下,政府施政有效性才能够发挥对双边贸易增加值的促进作用。     

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.     

Bilateral ‘WTO‐Plus’ Free Trade Agreements: The WTO Trade Policy Review of Singapore 2004

The World Trade Organisation's 2004 Trade Policy Review of Singapore (WTO‐TPR Singapore 2004) depicts the small and outward‐oriented economy as one of the most open countries to international trade and investment. The review highlights the benefits of the outward‐oriented strategy that has enabled the Singapore economy to weather recent external shocks such as the Asian financial crisis to the SARS and to the recent unfavourable conditions in the Middle East. In particular, the report commended Singapore's efforts on its liberalisation of the services sector and its economic benefits to consumers and global trade. However, the WTO‐TPR Singapore 2004 highlights several key areas of concerns: (a) the commitment to multilateral agreements with the rising number of bilateral free trade agreements signed by Singapore and (b) the lack of growth of total factor productivity, a key indicator for long‐run efficiency of the economy. The paper addresses the above key concerns raised in the WTO's TPR of Singapore in terms of its commitment to global trade in terms of WTO‐plus bilateral FTAs, which intends to support a multilateral trading system, and its overall industrial strategies to raise its competitiveness.     

International Organisations in a World of Regional Trade Agreements: Lessons from Club Theory

This essay deals with the challenge that international organizations face at the turn of the millennium. The basic insight from the theory of clubs and information theory is that coordination and cooperation require dominant providers. Cooperation becomes more difficult as players become more equal in economic size. Today's environment is less conducive to cooperation than the environment after World War II. By extension, club theory suggests that Regional Trade Agreements are not flukes. They have proliferated because cooperation is feasible in smaller groups with a few larger players. There is a significant risk, however, that regional blocs may replace the multilateral cooperative process. To reduce this risk we propose the creation of an inter‐bloc international organization dedicated to reduce blocs' barriers to trade and finance.     

Liberalisation and Protection under Overlapping Free Trade Agreements: Dynamic Interplay between Free Trade Agreements and Investment

Two decades into the most recent wave of regionalism many of its implications remain to be fully understood. A vast literature has explored the impacts of free trade agreements (FTAs) on investment flows, but less attention has been given to how existing patterns of investment alter FTA liberalisation. It is contended here that the dynamic interplay between overlapping FTA areas and the investment sunk in them shapes governments' and firms' positions regarding further FTA liberalisation. During trade negotiations, a country may decide to exclude a sector from FTA liberalisation to prevent (concession prevention) future FTA partners from making similar demands. Concession prevention could also occur when a foreign firm, holding a dominant market position in a host country, relinquishes liberalisation demands in an FTA between host and home countries to prevent its current position being eroded if the host country grants similar (or better) concessions to competing firms from other countries in future FTAs. Conversely, investment sunk into a country's sensitive sector in the territory of partners from previous FTAs could pre‐empt (concession pre‐emption) the protectionist position of that country when it subsequently negotiates FTAs with the investment‐source countries. These arguments were tested in the negotiations around the liberalisation of the automotive industry that Thailand and Malaysia had with Japan in their respective bilateral FTAs. The distinct interaction between investment and the FTAs in which these countries participate resulted either in entrenchment of protectionism in the sector or its liberalisation across subsequent FTAs.     

欧盟对华反倾销的贸易转移效应:基于产品角度的经验分析

本文从欧盟对华反倾销的产品类别出发,分析得出化工产品、钢铁及其制品和矿产品遭受欧盟反倾销强度较大,而电气设备和纺织品反倾销强度较小;并在此基础上分析了反倾销的贸易转移效应,结果表明除矿产品外的其余产品的贸易转移效应均与反倾销强度表现出不一致性;其原因大致包含:产品竞争力、出口增速、与欧盟产品价差、该产品出口对欧依赖程度、欧盟对中国进口依赖程度、进口替代国多少等因素。最后,本文指出应对欧盟对华反倾销的政策措施应基于其反倾销强度和贸易转移效应并因产品而异。     

Trade Liberalisation: The Effects of Free Trade Agreements on the Competitiveness of the Dairy Sector

In recent years, preferential trade agreements (PTAs), free trade agreements (FTAs) in particular, have proliferated while WTO negotiations have stagnated. This paper contributes to the literature on trade liberalisation and the agricultural sector by analysing the effects of FTAs on the competitiveness of the dairy sector across 76 countries and over a 20‐year period from 1990 to 2009. With a longitudinal econometric model, the results demonstrate that when a country has a revealed comparative advantage in the dairy sector, FTAs positively influence several indicators of competitiveness in the dairy sector, such as production, market share and trade balance. The results also indicate that multilateral FTAs are more beneficial than bilateral FTAs. There is strong empirical evidence that FTAs are more beneficial to developed countries than to developing countries. There is no statistical evidence to support the hypothesis about a relationship between FTAs and farm‐gate price.     

Free Trade Agreements In the Americas: Are the Trade Effects Larger than Anticipated?

This paper argues that the ‘competitive liberalisation’ of national governments of the past several decades reflects national governments’ expectations of larger trade impacts from regional economic integration agreements (EIAs) than typical ex ante economic models have suggested. Moreover, we show that previous (typically cross‐section) ex post empirical evaluations of the effects of EIAs on trade have seriously over‐ or underestimated the effects, partly due to ignoring the (endogenous) self‐selection bias of country pairs into EIAs. Accounting for this bias, we find that economic integration agreements in the Americas have had much larger impacts on trade over the period 1960–2000 than previously found and the ex post estimates are less fragile than those in earlier cross‐section analyses. The results shed further light on understanding the causes and consequences of the growth of regionalism in the world.