자유무역협정의 구성요소가 교역에 미치는 영향 분석 (The Contents of Free Trade Agreements and Their Effects on Trade)

Abstract

Korean Abstract: 최근 보호무역주의의 확산과 함께 WTO로 대표되는 다자무역체제가 위협받고 있다. 그럼에도 불구하고 지난 수년간 자유무역협정은 꾸준히 확대되어 왔으며 특히 협정이 포함하는 구성요소와 이를 규율하는 조항이 복잡·다양해졌다. 이에 본 연구는 Worldbank(2017) 데이터베이스를 활용하여 전 세계와 한국의 자유무역협정 구성요소 현황을 조사하고 자유무역협정의 수준 및 구성요소가 교역에 미치는 영향을 분석하였다.

English Abstract: Recently, the global trade system is deteriorating and the basis for world free trade is being threatened by a rise in trade protectionism. The multilateral trade system represented by the WTO has shown its limitations in efficiently reflecting the rapidly changing global trade environment. In the meantime, free trade agreements have continued to increase up to recently, not only in terms of their numbers but also the scope they cover. While free trade agrements in the past focused on tariff reduction, more recent free trade agrements include complex provisions on issues such as non-tariff barriers, services, investment, digital trade, and intellectual property rights. This study reviews the contents of free trade agreements and investigates their effects on trade using data from Worldbank (2017). First, more recent free trade agreements appear to contain more contents or provisions. We also find that Korea tends to sign more comprehensive free trade agreements, containing an average of 26 provisions, which is higher than the world average of 18. Second, we find that establishing such comprehensive free trade agreements has greater positive effects on trade. In particular, free trade agreements including more WTO-X provisions promote trade flows more effectively. Third, we also investigate the effect of each type of provision on trade. Empirical results are as follow. Market access provisions increased trade significantly. However, service provisions appear to have a negative effect on trade. Investment provisions also have a negative effect on trade, mainly negative for export from advanced countries to both advanced and developing countries. We also find that intellectual property rights provisions play a restrictive role on trade between developing countries while public procurement provisions have a positive effect on export to developing countries. Finally, while standard provisions have a negative effect on exports from developing countries to advanced countries, they appear to promote trade between developing countries. As mentioned above, the effects of provisions on trade are heterogeneous by the level of a country’s economy. Moreover, these might vary depending on how they are implemented, so further research is needed for an accurate interpretation of the results.