Rose (2004) showed that the WTO or its predecessor, the GATT, did not promote trade, based on conventional econometric analysis of gravity-type equations of trade. We argue that conclusions regarding the GATT/WTO trade effect based on gravity-type equations are arbitrary and subject to...

Rose (2004) showed that the WTO or its predecessor, the GATT, did not promote trade, based on conventional econometric analysis of gravity-type equations of trade. We argue that conclusions regarding the GATT/WTO trade effect based on gravity-type equations are arbitrary and subject to...

The main difficulty in treatment effect analysis with matching is accounting for unobserved differences (i.e., selection problem) between the treatment and control groups, because matching assumes no such differences. The traditional way to tackle the difficulty has been ¡®control function¡¯...

This paper proposes to reexamine the trade effect of GATT/WTO based on non-parametric econometric techniques. Our estimation framework uses the simplest gravity model that explains bilateral trade volumes with country sizes and trade resistance, without imposing parametric assumptions typically...