Department
Economics, Finance and Quantitative Analysis
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
2016
Embargo Period
7-18-2018
Abstract
This paper studies the growth effects of regional trade agreements (RTAs), taking into account the WTO participation of RTA members. Assuming smaller preference margins of RTAs for WTO members than non-members, I show in a model a stronger growth effect of RTAs for non-WTO members than that for WTO members. Based on a comprehensive set of 270 RTAs and a large panel dataset covering 177 countries over the period of 1960-2007, the regression results show that RTAs promote growth for non-WTO members, while their growth effect is insignificantly different from zero for WTO members. This implies that the complementarity between the two approaches of trade liberalization in promoting economic growth is so far limited.
Journal Title
Southern Economic Journal
Journal ISSN
0038-4038
Volume
82
Issue
4
First Page
1374
Last Page
1401
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)
10.1002/soej.12113
Comments
Preprint.