Evaluation of the Impact of Regional Trade Agreements on Indian Exports

Abstract

This article scrutinises the repercussion of the regional trade agreements on Indian exports. The gravity model has been used for the analysis of two decades of panel data from 30 countries, spanning from 2001 to 2019. The gravity equation is estimated by the Ordinary Least Square (OLS) and Poisson pseudo-maximum likelihood (PPML) techniques using panel data regression. The PPML approach addresses the heteroskedasticity bias that is typically present in the OLS method. The study has revealed that the PPML results are more encouraging than those obtained based on the traditional OLS approach. According to the empirical findings, India’s trading partners in South Asia benefit more from its economic integration than India does. However, the measurement of country-specific degrees of globalisation has a negligible effect on fostering trade across select nations. JEL Codes: C1, F1, F2, F6