IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/weltar/v147y2011i3p385-409.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Preferential trade agreements and the structure of international trade

Author

Listed:
  • Neil Foster
  • Robert Stehrer

Abstract

In this paper we examine the impact of membership in preferential trade agreements (PTAs) on trade between PTA members. Rather than considering the impact of PTA membership on the volume of trade we consider the impact of membership on the structure of trade. For a large sample of countries over the period 1962-2000 we find that membership in a PTA is associated with an increase in the extent of intra-industry trade. Our results indicate that this is especially the case for PTAs formed between richer countries, with the effects of PTAs between poorer countries found to be smaller.
(This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)

Suggested Citation

  • Neil Foster & Robert Stehrer, 2011. "Preferential trade agreements and the structure of international trade," Review of World Economics (Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv), Springer;Institut für Weltwirtschaft (Kiel Institute for the World Economy), vol. 147(3), pages 385-409, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:weltar:v:147:y:2011:i:3:p:385-409
    DOI: 10.1007/s10290-011-0093-y
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1007/s10290-011-0093-y
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s10290-011-0093-y?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Gabriel J Felbermayr & Wilhelm Kohler, 2014. "Exploring the Intensive and Extensive Margins of World Trade," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: European Economic Integration, WTO Membership, Immigration and Offshoring, chapter 4, pages 115-148, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    2. Baldwin, Richard & Taglioni, Daria, 2006. "Gravity for Dummies and Dummies for Gravity Equations," CEPR Discussion Papers 5850, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    3. Brada, Josef C & Mendez, Jose A, 1985. "Economic Integration among Developed, Developing and Centrally Planned Economies: A Comparative Analysis," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 67(4), pages 549-556, November.
    4. Shujiro Urata & Misa Okabe, 2009. "The Impacts Of Free Trade Agreements On Trade Flows: An Application Of The Gravity Model Approach," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Christopher Findlay & Shujiro Urata (ed.), Free Trade Agreements In The Asia Pacific, chapter 6, pages 195-239, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    5. Baier, Scott L. & Bergstrand, Jeffrey H., 2009. "Bonus vetus OLS: A simple method for approximating international trade-cost effects using the gravity equation," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 77(1), pages 77-85, February.
    6. Egger, Hartmut & Egger, Peter & Greenaway, David, 2008. "The trade structure effects of endogenous regional trade agreements," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 74(2), pages 278-298, March.
    7. Denis Medvedev, 2010. "Preferential trade agreements and their role in world trade," Review of World Economics (Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv), Springer;Institut für Weltwirtschaft (Kiel Institute for the World Economy), vol. 146(2), pages 199-222, June.
    8. James E. Anderson & Eric van Wincoop, 2003. "Gravity with Gravitas: A Solution to the Border Puzzle," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 93(1), pages 170-192, March.
    9. Robert C. Feenstra & Robert E. Lipsey & Haiyan Deng & Alyson C. Ma & Hengyong Mo, 2005. "World Trade Flows: 1962-2000," NBER Working Papers 11040, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    10. Scott L. Baier & Jeffrey H. Bergstrand & Peter Egger & Patrick A. McLaughlin, 2008. "Do Economic Integration Agreements Actually Work? Issues in Understanding the Causes and Consequences of the Growth of Regionalism," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 31(4), pages 461-497, April.
    11. Grubel, Herbert G & Lloyd, P J, 1971. "The Empirical Measurement of Intra- Industry Trade," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 47(120), pages 494-517, December.
    12. Bergstrand, Jeffrey H, 1985. "The Gravity Equation in International Trade: Some Microeconomic Foundations and Empirical Evidence," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 67(3), pages 474-481, August.
    13. Pinelopi K Goldberg & Amit K Khandelwal & Nina Pavcnik & Petia Topalova, 2010. "Multiproduct Firms and Product Turnover in the Developing World: Evidence from India," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 92(4), pages 1042-1049, November.
    14. Egger, Peter, 2000. "A note on the proper econometric specification of the gravity equation," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 66(1), pages 25-31, January.
    15. Laszlo Matyas, 1997. "Proper Econometric Specification of the Gravity Model," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 20(3), pages 363-368, May.
    16. Theo S. Eicher & Christian Henn & Chris Papageorgiou, 2012. "Trade creation and diversion revisited: Accounting for model uncertainty and natural trading partner effects," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 27(2), pages 296-321, March.
    17. Pinelopi Goldberg & Amit Khandelwal & Nina Pavcnik & Petia Topalova, 2009. "Trade Liberalization and New Imported Inputs," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 99(2), pages 494-500, May.
    18. Frankel, Jeffrey A & Stein, Ernesto & Wei, Shang-Jin, 1996. "Regional Trading Arrangements: Natural or Supernatural," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 86(2), pages 52-56, May.
    19. Aitken, Norman D, 1973. "The Effect of the EEC and EFTA on European Trade: A Temporal Cross-Section Analysis," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 63(5), pages 881-892, December.
    20. Baier, Scott L. & Bergstrand, Jeffrey H., 2004. "Economic determinants of free trade agreements," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 64(1), pages 29-63, October.
    21. Jeffrey A. Frankel, 1997. "Regional Trading Blocs in the World Economic System," Peterson Institute Press: All Books, Peterson Institute for International Economics, number 72, October.
    22. J. M. C. Santos Silva & Silvana Tenreyro, 2006. "The Log of Gravity," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 88(4), pages 641-658, November.
    23. I-Hui Cheng & Howard J. Wall, 2005. "Controlling for heterogeneity in gravity models of trade and integration," Review, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, vol. 87(Jan), pages 49-63.
    24. Ghosh, Sucharita & Yamarik, Steven, 2004. "Are regional trading arrangements trade creating?: An application of extreme bounds analysis," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 63(2), pages 369-395, July.
    25. Elhanan Helpman & Marc Melitz & Yona Rubinstein, 2008. "Estimating Trade Flows: Trading Partners and Trading Volumes," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 123(2), pages 441-487.
    26. Baier, Scott L. & Bergstrand, Jeffrey H., 2009. "Estimating the effects of free trade agreements on international trade flows using matching econometrics," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 77(1), pages 63-76, February.
    27. Steven Globerman, 1992. "North American trade liberalization and intra-industry trade," Review of World Economics (Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv), Springer;Institut für Weltwirtschaft (Kiel Institute for the World Economy), vol. 128(3), pages 487-497, September.
    28. Honore, Bo E, 1992. "Trimmed LAD and Least Squares Estimation of Truncated and Censored Regression Models with Fixed Effects," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 60(3), pages 533-565, May.
    29. repec:lmu:muenar:20646 is not listed on IDEAS
    30. Jeffrey H. Bergstrand & Peter Egger, 2006. "Trade Costs and Intra-Industry Trade," Review of World Economics (Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv), Springer;Institut für Weltwirtschaft (Kiel Institute for the World Economy), vol. 142(3), pages 433-458, October.
    31. Frankel, Jeffrey & Stein, Ernesto & Wei, Shang-jin, 1995. "Trading blocs and the Americas: The natural, the unnatural, and the super-natural," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 47(1), pages 61-95, June.
    32. Christian Volpe Martincus & Antoni Estevadeordal, 2009. "Trade policy and specialization in developing countries," Review of World Economics (Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv), Springer;Institut für Weltwirtschaft (Kiel Institute for the World Economy), vol. 145(2), pages 251-275, July.
    33. Masahiro Endoh, 2005. "The effects of the GSTP on trade flow: mission accomplished?," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 37(5), pages 487-496.
    34. Helpman, Elhanan, 1981. "International trade in the presence of product differentiation, economies of scale and monopolistic competition : A Chamberlin-Heckscher-Ohlin approach," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 11(3), pages 305-340, August.
    35. Jose Caetano & Aurora Galego, 2007. "In Search for the Determinants of Intra-Industry Trade within an Enlarged Europe," South-Eastern Europe Journal of Economics, Association of Economic Universities of South and Eastern Europe and the Black Sea Region, vol. 5(2), pages 163-183.
    36. Christopher Findlay & Shujiro Urata (ed.), 2009. "Free Trade Agreements in the Asia Pacific," World Scientific Books, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., number 7253, December.
    37. Magee Christopher S, 2003. "Endogenous Preferential Trade Agreements: An Empirical Analysis," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 2(1), pages 1-19, December.
    38. Robert Scollay & John P. Gilbert, 2001. "New Regional Trading Arrangements in the Asia Pacific?," Peterson Institute Press: All Books, Peterson Institute for International Economics, number pa63, October.
    39. World Bank, 2008. "World Development Indicators 2008," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 28241, December.
    40. Pinelopi Koujianou Goldberg & Amit Kumar Khandelwal & Nina Pavcnik & Petia Topalova, 2010. "Imported Intermediate Inputs and Domestic Product Growth: Evidence from India," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 125(4), pages 1727-1767.
    41. Baier, Scott L. & Bergstrand, Jeffrey H., 2007. "Do free trade agreements actually increase members' international trade?," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 71(1), pages 72-95, March.
    42. James R. Markusen, 2021. "Explaining the Volume of Trade: An Eclectic Approach," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: BROADENING TRADE THEORY Incorporating Market Realities into Traditional Models, chapter 9, pages 177-186, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    43. World Bank, 2008. "World Development Indicators 2008," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 11855, December.
    44. Schiff, Maurice, 1996. "Small is beautiful : preferential trade agreements and the impact of country size, market share, efficiency, and trade policy," Policy Research Working Paper Series 1668, The World Bank.
    45. Rodas-Martini, Pablo, 1998. "Intra-industry trade and revealed comparative advantage in the Central American Common Market," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 26(2), pages 337-344, February.
    46. Christian Volpe Martincus & Antoni Estevadeordal, 2009. "Trade Policy and Specialization," IDB Publications (Working Papers) 9289, Inter-American Development Bank.
    47. Bergstrand, Jeffrey H, 1990. "The Heckscher-Ohlin-Samuelson Model, the Linder Hypothesis and the Determinants of Bilateral Intra-industry Trade," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 100(403), pages 1216-1229, December.
    48. Yusuf Shahid & M. Anjum Altaf & Kaoru Nabeshima, 2004. "Global Change and East Asian Policy Initiatives," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 14928, December.
    49. Feenstra, Robert & Kee, Hiau Looi, 2008. "Export variety and country productivity: Estimating the monopolistic competition model with endogenous productivity," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 74(2), pages 500-518, March.
    50. Sala-i-Martin, Xavier, 1997. "I Just Ran Two Million Regressions," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 87(2), pages 178-183, May.
    51. Frankel, Jeffrey A. & Stein, Ernesto & Wei, Shang-Jin, 1996. "Regional Trading Arrangements," Center for International and Development Economics Research, Working Paper Series qt5hf1z4rv, Center for International and Development Economics Research, Institute for Business and Economic Research, UC Berkeley.
    52. Richard K. Abrams, 1980. "International trade flows under flexible exchange rates," Economic Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, vol. 65(Mar), pages 3-10.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Maria Cipollina & Federica Demaria, 2020. "The Trade Effect of the EU’s Preference Margins and Non-Tariff Barriers," JRFM, MDPI, vol. 13(9), pages 1-20, September.
    2. United Nations ESCAP (ed.), 2011. "Asia-Pacific Trade and Investment Report 2011: Post-crisis trade and investment opportunities," STUDIES IN TRADE AND INVESTMENT, United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP), number aptir2596, April.
    3. Vinko Zaninoviæ, 2022. "The intra-industry trade dynamics in CEE countries: The role of trade agreements," Zbornik radova Ekonomskog fakulteta u Rijeci/Proceedings of Rijeka Faculty of Economics, University of Rijeka, Faculty of Economics and Business, vol. 40(1), pages 129-145.
    4. Roy, Jayjit, 2017. "On the environmental consequences of intra-industry trade," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 83(C), pages 50-67.
    5. Ayman El Dahrawy Sánchez‐Albornoz & Jacopo Timini, 2021. "Trade agreements and Latin American trade (creation and diversion) and welfare," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 44(7), pages 2004-2040, July.
    6. Alexandra Ferreira-Lopes & Ccndida Sousa & Helena Carvalho & Nuno Crespo, 2017. "Trade Protectionism and Intra-industry Trade: A USA - EU Comparison," Research in World Economy, Research in World Economy, Sciedu Press, vol. 8(2), pages 88-102, December.
    7. Tristan Kohl, 2014. "Do we really know that trade agreements increase trade?," Review of World Economics (Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv), Springer;Institut für Weltwirtschaft (Kiel Institute for the World Economy), vol. 150(3), pages 443-469, August.
    8. Valentina Raimondi & Margherita Scoppola & Alessandro Olper, 2012. "Preference erosion and the developing countries exports to the EU: a dynamic panel gravity approach," Review of World Economics (Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv), Springer;Institut für Weltwirtschaft (Kiel Institute for the World Economy), vol. 148(4), pages 707-732, December.
    9. Justyna Lapinska, 2016. "Determinant Factors Of Intra-Industry Trade: The Case Of Poland And Its European Union Trading Partners," Equilibrium. Quarterly Journal of Economics and Economic Policy, Institute of Economic Research, vol. 11(2), pages 251-264, June.
    10. Neil Foster, 2012. "Preferential Trade Agreements and the Margins of Imports," Open Economies Review, Springer, vol. 23(5), pages 869-889, November.
    11. Orszaghova, Lucia & Schudel, Willem & Dautović, Ernest, 2014. "Intra-industry trade between CESEE countries and the EU15," Working Paper Series 1719, European Central Bank.
    12. Ernest Dautović & Lucia Orszaghova & Willem Schudel, 2017. "Converging in divergent ways," The Economics of Transition, The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, vol. 25(4), pages 625-662, October.
    13. Jung Hur & Hyun-Hoon Lee, 2017. "Apec Has Indeed Created Intra-Regional Trade: A Systematic Empirical Analysis," The Singapore Economic Review (SER), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 62(05), pages 1077-1095, December.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Foster, Neil & Poeschl, Johannes & Stehrer, Robert, 2011. "The impact of Preferential Trade Agreements on the margins of international trade," Economic Systems, Elsevier, vol. 35(1), pages 84-97, March.
    2. Neil Foster, 2012. "Preferential Trade Agreements and the Margins of Imports," Open Economies Review, Springer, vol. 23(5), pages 869-889, November.
    3. Rod Falvey & Neil Foster-McGregor, 2022. "The breadth of preferential trade agreements and the margins of exports," Review of World Economics (Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv), Springer;Institut für Weltwirtschaft (Kiel Institute for the World Economy), vol. 158(1), pages 181-251, February.
    4. Baier, Scott L. & Bergstrand, Jeffrey H., 2007. "Do free trade agreements actually increase members' international trade?," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 71(1), pages 72-95, March.
    5. Scott L. Baier & Amanda Kerr & Yoto V. Yotov, 2018. "Gravity, distance, and international trade," Chapters, in: Bruce A. Blonigen & Wesley W. Wilson (ed.), Handbook of International Trade and Transportation, chapter 2, pages 15-78, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    6. Jayjit Roy, 2014. "On the robustness of the trade-inducing effects of trade agreements and currency unions," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 47(1), pages 253-304, August.
    7. Tristan Kohl, 2014. "Do we really know that trade agreements increase trade?," Review of World Economics (Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv), Springer;Institut für Weltwirtschaft (Kiel Institute for the World Economy), vol. 150(3), pages 443-469, August.
    8. Anderson, James E. & Yotov, Yoto V., 2016. "Terms of trade and global efficiency effects of free trade agreements, 1990–2002," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 99(C), pages 279-298.
    9. Byungyul Park & John Beghin, 2023. "Exploring the impact of economic integration agreements through extreme bounds analysis," Review of International Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 31(1), pages 35-59, February.
    10. Eicher, Theo S. & Henn, Christian, 2011. "In search of WTO trade effects: Preferential trade agreements promote trade strongly, but unevenly," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 83(2), pages 137-153, March.
    11. Bianka Dettmer, 2012. "The European Union's service directive: Contrasting ex ante estimates with empirical evidence," Jena Economics Research Papers 2012-019, Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena.
    12. Sylvanus Kwaku Afesorgbor, 2013. "Revisiting the Effectiveness of African Economic Integration. A Meta-Analytic Review and Comparative Estimation Methods," Economics Working Papers 2013-13, Department of Economics and Business Economics, Aarhus University.
    13. Shadat Hossain, 2018. "SAFTA and AFTA: a comparative welfare analysis of two regional trade agreements," Journal of Economic Structures, Springer;Pan-Pacific Association of Input-Output Studies (PAPAIOS), vol. 7(1), pages 1-27, December.
    14. Guglielmo Caporale & Christophe Rault & Robert Sova & Anamaria Sova, 2009. "On the bilateral trade effects of free trade agreements between the EU-15 and the CEEC-4 countries," Review of World Economics (Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv), Springer;Institut für Weltwirtschaft (Kiel Institute for the World Economy), vol. 145(3), pages 573-573, October.
    15. Cardamone, Paola, 2007. "A Survey of the Assessments of the Effectiveness of Preferential Trade Agreements using Gravity Models," Economia Internazionale / International Economics, Camera di Commercio Industria Artigianato Agricoltura di Genova, vol. 60(4), pages 421-473.
    16. Florian Mölders & Ulrich Volz, 2011. "Trade creation and the status of FTAs: empirical evidence from East Asia," Review of World Economics (Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv), Springer;Institut für Weltwirtschaft (Kiel Institute for the World Economy), vol. 147(3), pages 429-456, September.
    17. Amélie Guillin, 2013. "Trade in Services and Regional Trade Agreements: Do Negotiations on Services Have to be Specific?," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 36(11), pages 1406-1423, November.
    18. Peter Egger & Mario Larch & Kevin E. Staub & Rainer Winkelmann, 2011. "The Trade Effects of Endogenous Preferential Trade Agreements," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 3(3), pages 113-143, August.
    19. N. Nergiz Dincer & Ayça Tekin-Koru & Pinar Yaşar, 2018. "Costs of a missing FTA: the case of Turkey and Algeria," Empirica, Springer;Austrian Institute for Economic Research;Austrian Economic Association, vol. 45(3), pages 489-505, August.
    20. Michele Fratianni & Francesco Marchionne, 2011. "The Limits to Integration," Chapters, in: Miroslav N. Jovanović (ed.), International Handbook on the Economics of Integration, Volume I, chapter 9, Edward Elgar Publishing.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Preferential trade agreements; Intra-industry trade; Gravity equation; F10; F15;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • F10 - International Economics - - Trade - - - General
    • F15 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Economic Integration

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:spr:weltar:v:147:y:2011:i:3:p:385-409. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.