Trade Effects of the Europe Agreements

The eastern enlargement of the European Union (EU) brought and will bring full membership to countries whose trade barriers with the EU had to a large extent already been removed under Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) during the 1990s. We employ a theory-based new version of a gravity equation, whose specification allows for an assessment of the impact of the arrangements on extra- and intra-group imports. We find robust evidence that the agreements have substantially increased intra-group trade, in the case of the Czech and Slovak Republic at the expense of the Rest of the World (ROW)