Macroeconomic Determinants of the World Trade Disputes

This article is whether and how the world macroeconomic environments influence the world trade disputes. We use two-pronged approach. First, we try to answer the question whether and how global macroeconomic environments are attached to the count of the world trade disputes. Even if the traditional literature captures it at the national-level, global picture needs to be completed. The second question we address is that given the set of trade dispute initiating countries, whether and how differently high-, middle- and low-income countries respond to their macroeconomic environments in their decision-makings of trade disputes initiations. The universe in the second question is a selected set of the filing countries only, not all countries on this planet. One can capture the behaviours of the countries involved in the trade disputes under certain macroeconomic circumstances. The period is from 1995 to 2008, covering all records of trade disputes since the birth of the World Trade Organization (WTO)