In this paper we investigate whether multilateral trade liberalisation undermines or encourages preferential trade liberalisation. We use highly disaggregated data at the tariff-line level and find an 'emulator effect' of multilateral trade liberalisation on preferential trade agreements....

The proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is a free trade agreement among 12 Pacific Rim countries whose joint gross domestic products (GDPs) account for 36 percent of world GDP and whose mutual trade accounts for approximately 24 percent of world trade. As for most proposed free trade...

The RTAs with trade facilitation provisions have been expected to generate a larger net trade-creating effect and complement the discriminatory feature of RTAs but have yet to be empirically proven. Recognizing the limitations of existing studies, we conducted a quantitative analysis on the...

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...

Evaluating the economic impact of an FTA is an important part of the monitoring and surveying process that should follow the establishment of an FTA. This paper presents methods for evaluating the trade and welfare effects of an FTA. These methods show how to (i) compute indicators for the...

This study uses a theoretically justified gravity model of trade to examine the impact of the ASEAN-China Free Trade Agreement (ACFTA) on exports, focusing on trade creation and diversion effects. The model is tested on a sample of 31 countries over the period dating from 1995 to 2010 using...

We develop a novel two-stage methodology that allows us to study the empirical determinants of the ex post effects of past free trade agreements (FTAs) as well as obtain ex ante predictions for the effects of future FTAs. We first identify 908 unique estimates of the effects of FTAs on different...

This paper estimates econometrically the impact of NAFTA on US-Mexico and US-third countries (groups of countries) trade flows. Using a traditional gravity-equation framework, we try to see to what extent the bilateral trade flows between the US and different countries differ from a gravity-type...

This paper studies the role of reduced barriers to international trade from two dimensions: (i) the implementation of Free Trade Agreements and (ii) declining "border effects". Our empirical estimates suggest that diminished border effects accounts for the bulk of the increase in international...

This paper empirically confronts one explanation of spreading regionalism with the European experience. The domino theory asserts that forming a preferential trade area, or deepening an existing one, produces trade diversion that generates new political-economy forces in third nations as...