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The Growth of Bilateralism

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  • Baier, Scott L; Bergstrand, Jeffery H; Mariutto, Roland.

    (Clemson University; University of Notre Dame.)

Abstract

One of the most notable international economic events over the past 20 years has been the proliferation of bilateral free trade agreements (FTAs). Bilateral agreements account for 80 percent of all agreements notified to the WTO, 94 percent of those signed or under negotiation, and currently 100 percent of those at the proposal stage. Some have argued that the growth of bilateralism is attributable to governments having pursued a policy of "competitive liberalization" - implementing bilateral FTAs to offset potential trade diversion caused by FTAs of "third-country-pairs" - but the growth of bilateralism can also be attributed potentially to "tariff complementarity" - the incentive for FTA members to reduce their external tariffs on nonmembers. Guided by new comparative statics from the numerical general equilibrium monopolistic competition model of FTA economic determinants in Baier and Bergstrand (2004), we augment their parsimonious logit (and probit) model of the economic determinants of bilateral FTAs to incorporate theory-motivated indexes to examine the in°uence of existing memberships on subsequent FTA formations. The model can predict correctly 90 percent of the bilateral FTAs within five years of their formation, while still predicting "No-FTA" correctly in 90 percent of the observations when no FTA exists, using a sample of over 350,000 observations for pairings of 146 countries from 1960-2005. Even imposing the higher correct prediction rate of "No-FTA" of 97 percent in Baier and Bergstrand (2004), the parsimonious model still predicts correctly 75 percent of these rare FTA events; only 3 percent of the observations reflect a country-pair having an FTA in any year. The results suggest that while evidence supports that "competitive liberalization" is a force for bilateralism the efect on the likelihood a pair of countries forming an FTA of the pair's own FTAs with other countries (i.e., tariff complementarity) is likely just as important as the effect of third-country-pairs' FTAs (i.e. competitive liberalization) for the growth of bilateralism.

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Bibliographic Info

Paper provided by Competitive Advantage in the Global Economy (CAGE) in its series CAGE Online Working Paper Series with number 12.

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Date of creation: 2010
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Handle: RePEc:cge:warwcg:12

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Web page: http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/economics/research/centres/cage/
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Keywords: Free Trade Agreements; International Trade; Endogenous Tariffs;

References

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  1. Emanuel Ornelas, 2005. "Rent Destruction and the Political Viability of Free Trade Agreements," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 120(4), pages 1475-1506, November.
  2. 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.
  3. Egger, Peter & Larch, Mario, 2008. "Interdependent preferential trade agreement memberships: An empirical analysis," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 76(2), pages 384-399, December.
  4. Pravin Krishna, . "Regionalism and Multilaterialism: A Political Economy Approach," Working Papers 96-5, Brown University, Department of Economics.
  5. Baldwin, Richard & Jaimovich, Dany, 2012. "Are Free Trade Agreements contagious?," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(1), pages 1-16.
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  7. Costas Arkolakis & Arnaud Costinot & Andres Rodriguez-Clare, 2012. "New Trade Models, Same Old Gains?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 102(1), pages 94-130, February.
  8. 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.
  9. Ben Zissimos, 2010. "Why are Trade Agreements Regional?," Vanderbilt University Department of Economics Working Papers 1002, Vanderbilt University Department of Economics.
  10. Caroline Freund & Emanuel Ornelas, 2010. "Regional Trade Agreements," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 2(1), pages 139-166, 09.
  11. Ornelas, Emanuel, 2005. "Endogenous free trade agreements and the multilateral trading system," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 67(2), pages 471-497, December.
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  13. Joseph P. Joyce, 2005. "Time Past and Time Present: a Duration Analysis of IMF Program Spells," Review of International Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 13(2), pages 283-297, 05.
  14. Mansfield, Edward D. & Reinhardt, Eric, 2003. "Multilateral Determinants of Regionalism: The Effects of GATT/WTO on the Formation of Preferential Trading Arrangements," International Organization, Cambridge University Press, vol. 57(04), pages 829-862, September.
  15. Antoni Estevadeordal & Caroline Freund & Emanuel Ornelas, 2008. "Does Regionalism Affect Trade Liberalization Towards Non-Members?," CEP Discussion Papers dp0868, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
  16. Carsten Kowalczyk & Raymond Riezman, 2009. "Trade Agreements," CESifo Working Paper Series 2660, CESifo Group Munich.
  17. Bond, Eric W. & Riezman, Raymond G. & Syropoulos, Constantinos, 2004. "A strategic and welfare theoretic analysis of free trade areas," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 64(1), pages 1-27, October.
  18. Richardson, Martin, 1993. "Endogenous protection and trade diversion," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 34(3-4), pages 309-324, May.
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Cited by:
  1. Hoekman, Bernard & Nicita, Alessandro, 2011. "Trade Policy, Trade Costs, and Developing Country Trade," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 39(12), pages 2069-2079.

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