The WTO’s impact on bilateral trade remains puzzling due, in part, to previous studies’ failure to simultaneously address three issues: inclusion of zero trade, proper controls for multilateral resistance, and proper membership definition. Addressing all fails to suggest a positive effect.

We consider the impact of MERCOSUR on trade among Brazilian states and on trade by Brazilian states with MERCOSUR and the rest of the world. We use a theoretically founded gravity model to shed light on MERCOSUR’s possible creation and diversion effects as well as its “preference erosion”...

This paper provides an ex-post assessment of the Regional Trade Agreements (RTAs) to see whether RTAs have been trade creating or trade diverting. We estimate the impact of RTAs on trade flows for country pair with dyed fixed effects and time dummies. These fixed effects capture the determinants...

We consider the impact of MERCOSUR on trade among Brazilian states and on trade by Brazilian states with MERCOSUR and the rest of the world. We use a theoretically founded gravity model to shed light on MERCOSUR’s possible creation and diversion effects as well as its “preference erosion”...

We raise the possibility that at least some of the free trade areas observed in practice are customs unions in disguise. We distinguish between generalized and standard customs unions. While members of the former can choose different external tariff rates, members of the latter levy a common...

This paper develops a methodology for trade policy analysis of costs and benefits of alternative regional integration scenarios. The methodology is based on the disaggregated gravity equation, which is applied to calculate the impact of the EU enlargement on integration strategies of non-member...

This paper presents an alternative derivation of the gravity equation for foreign trade, which is explicitly based on monopolistic competition in the export markets and which is more general than previously seen in the literature. In contrast with the usual specification, our model allows for...

This article analyses the trade impact of preferential trade agreements (PTA). We firstly revisit the literature using a “traditional gravity” setting extended to rely on detailed data at the sector level (26 ISIC industries), using a panel of more than 100 countries between...

Member countries of a currency union like the euro area have absorbed asymmetric shocks in ways that are inconsistent with a common nominal anchor. Based on a reformulation of the gravity model that allows for such bilateral misalignment, we disentangle the conventional microeconomic trade...