Economic geography in the presence of preferential trade agreements: an empirical analysis of OECD data

In the presence of preferential trade agreements (PTAs), there are two distinct levels of economic geography-global economic geography (GEG) between a PTA bloc and the world and local economic geography (LEG) between a PTA member and its PTA bloc. Using OECD data, we empirically examine whether both types of economic geography can help to explain the international production structure. Our findings provide some support for the importance of distinguishing between LEG and GEG when testing for the presence of economic geography.