The growth of regional trading blocs has been one of the major developments in international relations in recent years. Virtually all countries are members of a bloc and many belong to more than one; more than one third of world trade takes place within such agreements. Regional agreements vary...

The paper applies a gravity model to 1980-1996 annual non-fuel imports data for 58 countries to quantify the effects of recently created or revamped PTAs on trade. We modify the usual gravity equation to identify separate effects of PTAs on intra-bloc trade, members' total imports and their...