Testing Conflicting Political Economy Theories: Full‐Fledged versus Partial‐Scope Regional Trade Agreements

Liu, Xuepeng

doi:10.4284/sej.2010.77.1.78

Cited by 20 publications

(16 citation statements)

References 47 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…The results mean that the RTA promotes international trade [14,16], and there is a possibility that the RTA conflicts with the WTO and promotes blocks of countries on the other hand. In the past, trading blocks have decreased international trade.…”

Section: Estimated Resultsmentioning

confidence: 95%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Is the WTO Truly Effective?

Kurihara¹

2012

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Whether or not the World Trade Organization (WTO) has promoted international trade is under dispute. This article uses a revised traditional gravity model to conduct empirical examination of this problem and found that WTO has recently promoted international trade and that the degree of increase is larger in developed countries than in developing ones. Moreover, regional trade agreements (RTA), currency unions, GDP, and distance are related to the increase of international trade along with the effects of WTO activities. On the other hand, the effect of distance on international trade has been decreasing. Improvements in information technology (IT) may have influenced this finding.

show abstract

Section: Estimated Resultsmentioning

confidence: 95%

“…[7] found that the integration in the Euro area had a positive effect on economic growth. Other studies (e.g., [8][9][10][11][12][13][14]) examined the effect of RTA on bilateral trade. [15,16] showed that the introduction of the U.S. dollar as the domestic currency would be beneficial to APEC countries.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Is the WTO Truly Effective?

Kurihara¹

2012

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…32 Grossman and Helpman (1995) do provide a framework for studying exclusions in FTAs, but that part of their paper has been inexplicably neglected in the subsequent literature. Empirically, we are only aware of Liu's (2009) study of how the influence of special interest groups relative to voters shapes the choice between "partial-scope" and "full-fledged" RTAs ( Figure 1 represents the latter), and of Vicard's (2009) analysis of how the history of conflicts between countries affects their choice of type of RTAs.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Regional trade agreements

Shrikant¹

2010

Annual Report

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This paper reviews the theoretical and the empirical literature on regionalism. The formation of regional trade agreements has been, by far, the most popular form of reciprocal trade liberalization in the last fifteen years. The discriminatory character of these agreements has raised three main concerns: that trade diversion would be rampant, because special interest groups would induce governments to form the most distortionary agreements; that broader external trade liberalization would stall or reverse; and that multilateralism could be undermined. Theoretically, all of these concerns are legitimate, although there are also several theoretical arguments that oppose them. Empirically, neither widespread trade diversion nor stalled external liberalization have materialized, while the undermining of multilateralism has not been properly tested. There are also several aspects of regionalism that have received too little attention from researchers, but which are central to understanding its causes and consequences.

show abstract

“…One reason could be that RTAs could help reduce volatility, even if they do not significantly alter growth. The costs imposed by a volatile macroeconomic environment on investment, educational attainment, income distribution and poverty are well documented, implying that reducing volatility of growth could be a valid reason for why politicians are keen to sign RTAs (for a summary, see Gavin and Hausmann, 1996;Liu, 2008).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Does a Regional Trade Agreement Lessen or Worsen Growth Volatility? An Empirical Investigation

Kpodar

Imam

2016

Rev International Economics

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This paper assesses how regional trade agreements (RTAs) impact on growth volatility for a sample of 170 countries over the period 1978–2012. Notwithstanding concerns that trade openness through RTAs might heighten exposure to shocks, RTAs through enhanced policy credibility, improved policy coordination and reduced risk of conflicts can also ease growth volatility. Empirical estimations suggest the benefits outweigh the costs as RTAs are consistently associated with lower growth volatility. In addition, smaller economies benefit more from the reduced growth volatility associated with RTAs than larger ones. The nature of the RTA also matters as shallow agreements such as partial‐scope preferential trade agreements do not appear to have a significant effect on growth volatility, whereas free trade areas and customs unions do. Finally, in investigating the drivers of RTAs, the regression results confirm that countries that are more prone to shocks are more likely to join an RTA, in particular with countries with relatively less volatile growth.

show abstract

Testing Conflicting Political Economy Theories: Full‐Fledged versus Partial‐Scope Regional Trade Agreements

Cited by 20 publications

References 47 publications

Is the WTO Truly Effective?

Is the WTO Truly Effective?

Regional trade agreements

Does a Regional Trade Agreement Lessen or Worsen Growth Volatility? An Empirical Investigation

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About