Measuring World Trade Organization Accession Commitments and Their Economic Effects

All members join the World Trade Organization (WTO) as a result of negotiations. WTO membership means a balance of rights and obligations. The paper aims at building a synthetic index to measure the depth of accession commitments and estimate the economic impact of accession on Article XII members (recently acceded members). We find that WTO accession has a positive and significant influence on an economy’s trade and investment. The impact of WTO accession on the ratio of trade to gross domestic product is significantly higher than in previous studies on developing countries. Trade in services tends also to increase after accession. Moreover, greater openness does not negatively affect the trade balance of Article XII members. The results on investment, be it domestic or foreign, are also encouraging, but are not fully conclusive