Summary We use panel data consisting of 96 countries and covering the period 1960-2000 to investigate the effects of free trade agreements (FTAs) and hub-and-spoke systems of FTA on exports. Our empirical results imply an annual growth rate of 5.57% in exports and hence a doubling of exports...

This paper assesses whether a bilateral FTA raises the growth rates of the two countries engaging in the FTA. A nonparametric matching approach, which imposes no specific functional forms and can be applied to a broad range of data structures, is employed to estimate the FTA effect on the...

Summary The vast majority of the sizable empirical literature which examines the relationship between productivity and employment examines data from developed countries. In this paper, we contribute to the limited empirical literature on the productivity-employment relationship in developing...