Mario Larch, José-Antonio Monteiro, Roberta Piermartini, Yoto V. Yotov
{"title":"On the trade effects of GATT/WTO membership: They are positive and large after all","authors":"Mario Larch, José-Antonio Monteiro, Roberta Piermartini, Yoto V. Yotov","doi":"10.1111/caje.12755","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p>The existing empirical literature on impact of GATT/WTO membership on international trade is mixed. This paper contributes to solving the puzzle of “the missing GATT/WTO effects” by adhering closely to the theoretical foundations of the gravity model of trade. Capitalizing on the latest developments in the empirical trade literature and building a new and large data set covering 186 countries over the period 1980–2016, we estimate a theory-consistent gravity equation, which includes intra-national in addition to international trade flows. We find that joining GATT/WTO increased partial equilibrium trade between members by 140%. Our methods also deliver novel estimates of the impact of GATT/WTO on trade between members and non-member countries, indicating an increase of 72%.</p>","PeriodicalId":47941,"journal":{"name":"Canadian Journal of Economics-Revue Canadienne D Economique","volume":"58 1","pages":"281-328"},"PeriodicalIF":1.3000,"publicationDate":"2025-02-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Canadian Journal of Economics-Revue Canadienne D Economique","FirstCategoryId":"96","ListUrlMain":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/caje.12755","RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q3","JCRName":"ECONOMICS","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
The existing empirical literature on impact of GATT/WTO membership on international trade is mixed. This paper contributes to solving the puzzle of “the missing GATT/WTO effects” by adhering closely to the theoretical foundations of the gravity model of trade. Capitalizing on the latest developments in the empirical trade literature and building a new and large data set covering 186 countries over the period 1980–2016, we estimate a theory-consistent gravity equation, which includes intra-national in addition to international trade flows. We find that joining GATT/WTO increased partial equilibrium trade between members by 140%. Our methods also deliver novel estimates of the impact of GATT/WTO on trade between members and non-member countries, indicating an increase of 72%.
期刊介绍:
The Canadian Journal of Economics (CJE) is the journal of the Canadian Economics Association (CEA) and is the primary academic economics journal based in Canada. The editors seek to maintain and enhance the position of the CJE as a major, internationally recognized journal and are very receptive to high-quality papers on any economics topic from any source. In addition, the editors recognize the Journal"s role as an important outlet for high-quality empirical papers about the Canadian economy and about Canadian policy issues.