The Impact of International Economic Sanctions on Trade Empirical Evidence over the Period 1960-2000

International economic sanctions are a recurring feature of political interactions. This paper provides, through a gravity model approach, an estimation of the impact of sanctions on international trade. The study reports panel estimates between the US and 49 target countries over the period 1960- 2000, inclusive. The results show that extensive sanctions have a large negative impact on bilateral trade, while this is not the case for limited and moderate sanctions. A second estimation focuses on the impact of unilateral US sanctions on bilateral trade between target countries and the other G-7 countries. The results show that unilateral extensive sanctions have also a large negative impact, while limited ones induce a slight positive effect on other G-7 countries trade. In the first case the hypothesis of negative ‘network effects’ is confirmed, while in the latter the sanctions-busting argument should be defended.