For more than forty years, the gravity equation has been a workhorse for cross-country empirical analyses of international trade flows and, in particular, the effects of free trade agreements (FTAs) on trade flows. However, the gravity equation is subject to the same econometric critique as...

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...

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 presents two empirical tools to quantify the impacts of tariff changes on bilateral trade and welfare. Both tools are rooted in the structural gravity literature. The first tool estimates the impact of tariff changes on bilateral trade for 5,020 products in a partial equilibrium...

International trade in manufacturing goods has risen strongly over the past decades, contributing to the expansion of global value chains (GVCs). This paper studies how two factors contributed to this rise since 1970: (i) declining "border effects" that are arguably related to the ICT revolution...

This paper compares the solution methods and baseline calibration of three different quantitative trade models (QTMs): computable general equilibrium (CGE) models, structural gravity (SG) models and models employing exact hat algebra (EHA). The different solution methods generate identical...

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 study investigated the trade efficiency and trade effects under Free Trade Agreements for Thailand's agricultural exports. There are five main trading partners comprising China, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, and India. The important agricultural commodities of rubber, cassava, fruits,...

International trade ows reveal strong persistence over time. This paper is concerned with the role of trade agreements in this persistent environment. The data reveal a high level of heterogeneity of the trade- creating effect along the trade volume and per-capita income distributions. If...

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...