We estimate the effect of RTAs on bilateral exports by means of a gravity model analyzing its sensitivity to different specifications and methods. RTAs generate a sizable positive effect. However, shifting to country-pair and time-varying fixed effects systematically reduces coefficients....

Using an unbalanced panel dataset of bilateral exports from 1992 to 2009, this paper assesses the potential trade impacts of the expansion of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) to ASEAN+3 and ASEAN+6 on the Lao People's Democratic Republic (Lao PDR). It finds that bilateral...

Gravity equations have been used for more than 50 years to estimate ex post the partial effects of trade costs on international trade flows, and the well-known - and traditionally presumed exogenous - "trade-cost elasticity" plays a central role in computing general equilibrium trade-flow and...

The article covers main stages of integration processes in the CIS area since its formation. We analyzed the specifics of preferential trade agreements (PTAs) in the CIS. We prepared an exhaustive list of expired and currently effective PTAs in the CIS area, taking into account the initial...

This paper is the first to systematically study the trade effects of economic integration agreements (EIAs) between the European Union -- one of the driving forces behind the recent explosion of EIAs -- and third countries. We thoroughly disentangle the ex post effects of these EIAs: 1) we allow...

Three years ago, very few economists would have imagined that one of the newest and fastest growing research areas in international trade is the use of quantitative trade models to estimate the economic welfare losses from dissolutions of major countries' economic integration agreements (EIAs)....