IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/arx/papers/2509.17303.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Trade, Political Distance and the World Trade Organization

Author

Listed:
  • Samuel Hardwick

Abstract

Trade agreements are often understood as shielding commerce from fluctuations in political relations. This paper provides evidence that World Trade Organization membership reduces the penalty of political distance on trade at the extensive margin. Using a structural gravity framework covering 1948 to 2023 and two measures of political distance, based on high-frequency events data and UN General Assembly votes, GATT/WTO status is consistently associated with a wider range of products traded between politically distant partners. The association is strongest in the early WTO years (1995 to 2008). Events-based estimates also suggest attenuation at the intensive margin, while UN vote-based estimates do not. Across all specifications, GATT/WTO membership increases aggregate trade volumes. The results indicate that a function of the multilateral trading system has been to foster new trade links across political divides, while raising trade volumes among both close and distant partners.

Suggested Citation

  • Samuel Hardwick, 2025. "Trade, Political Distance and the World Trade Organization," Papers 2509.17303, arXiv.org.
    • Handle: RePEc:arx:papers:2509.17303
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://arxiv.org/pdf/2509.17303
    File Function: Latest version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Peter H. Egger & Mario Larch & Yoto V. Yotov, 2022. "Gravity Estimations with Interval Data: Revisiting the Impact of Free Trade Agreements," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 89(353), pages 44-61, January.
    2. Jong-Wha Lee & Ju Hyun Pyun, 2016. "Does Trade Integration Contribute to Peace?," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 20(1), pages 327-344, February.
    3. Kim, In Song & Londregan, John & Ratkovic, Marc, 2019. "The Effects of Political Institutions on the Extensive and Intensive Margins of Trade," International Organization, Cambridge University Press, vol. 73(4), pages 755-792, October.
    4. Volker Nitsch, 2007. "State Visits and International Trade," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 30(12), pages 1797-1816, December.
    5. Dutt, Pushan, 2020. "The WTO is not passé," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 128(C).
    6. Jakubik, Adam & Ruta, Michele, 2023. "Trading with friends in uncertain times," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 45(4), pages 768-780.
    7. Philippe Martin & Thierry Mayer & Mathias Thoenig, 2012. "The Geography of Conflicts and Regional Trade Agreements," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 4(4), pages 1-35, October.
    8. Rafael Reuveny & Heejoon Kang, 2003. "A Simultaneous‐Equations Model of Trade, Conflict, and Cooperation," Review of International Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 11(2), pages 279-295, May.
    9. Morrow, James D. & Siverson, Randolph M. & Tabares, Tressa E., 1998. "The Political Determinants of International Trade: The Major Powers, 1907–1990," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 92(3), pages 649-661, September.
    10. Christina L. Davis & Sophie Meunier, 2011. "Business as Usual? Economic Responses to Political Tensions," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 55(3), pages 628-646, July.
    11. Gabriel Felbermayr & Wilhelm Kohler, 2010. "Modelling the Extensive Margin of World Trade: New Evidence on GATT and WTO Membership," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 33(11), pages 1430-1469, November.
    12. Bergstrand, Jeffrey H. & Larch, Mario & Yotov, Yoto V., 2015. "Economic integration agreements, border effects, and distance elasticities in the gravity equation," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 78(C), pages 307-327.
    13. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/f4rshpf3v1umfa09lb0k114o5 is not listed on IDEAS
    14. Xuepeng Liu, 2009. "GATT/WTO Promotes Trade Strongly: Sample Selection and Model Specification," Review of International Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 17(3), pages 428-446, August.
    15. Qin Chen & Yi Zhou, 2021. "Whose trade follows the flag? Institutional constraints and economic responses to bilateral relations," Journal of Peace Research, Peace Research Institute Oslo, vol. 58(6), pages 1207-1223, November.
    16. Gopinath, Gita & Gourinchas, Pierre-Olivier & Presbitero, Andrea F. & Topalova, Petia, 2025. "Changing global linkages: A new Cold War?," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 153(C).
    17. Pollins, Brian M., 1989. "Does Trade Still Follow the Flag?," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 83(2), pages 465-480, June.
    18. repec:spo:wpmain:info:hdl:2441/f4rshpf3v1umfa09lb0k114o5 is not listed on IDEAS
    19. Shawn Davies & Garoun Engström & Therése Pettersson & Magnus Öberg, 2024. "Organized violence 1989–2023, and the prevalence of organized crime groups," Journal of Peace Research, Peace Research Institute Oslo, vol. 61(4), pages 673-693, July.
    20. Gowa, Joanne & Mansfield, Edward D., 1993. "Power Politics and International Trade," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 87(2), pages 408-420, June.
    21. Philippe Martin & Thierry Mayer & Mathias Thoenig, 2012. "The Geography of Conflicts and Regional Trade Agreements," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 4(4), pages 1-35, October.
    22. Du, Yingxin & Ju, Jiandong & Ramirez, Carlos D. & Yao, Xi, 2017. "Bilateral trade and shocks in political relations: Evidence from China and some of its major trading partners, 1990–2013," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 108(C), pages 211-225.
    23. Yoto V. Yotov, 2022. "On the role of domestic trade flows for estimating the gravity model of trade," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 40(3), pages 526-540, July.
    24. Anderson, James E, 1979. "A Theoretical Foundation for the Gravity Equation," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 69(1), pages 106-116, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. (ed.), 0. "Research Handbook on Economic Diplomacy," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 16053, March.
    2. Yan, Jiaqiang & Zhou, Yonghong, 2021. "Economic return to political support: Evidence from voting on the representation of China in the United Nations," Journal of Asian Economics, Elsevier, vol. 75(C).
    3. Fuchs, Andreas, 2016. "China’s Economic Diplomacy and the Politics-Trade Nexus," Working Papers 0609, University of Heidelberg, Department of Economics.
    4. Fuchs, Andreas & Klann, Nils-Hendrik, 2013. "Paying a visit: The Dalai Lama effect on international trade," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 91(1), pages 164-177.
    5. Yuren Wang & Yitao Tao, 2024. "The effect of fluctuations in bilateral relations on trade: evidence from China and ASEAN countries," Humanities and Social Sciences Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 11(1), pages 1-13, December.
    6. Jianting Fan & Bo Lu, 2021. "The impact of summit visits on bilateral trade: Empirical evidence from China," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 44(12), pages 3583-3608, December.
    7. Bing Li & Yixuan Ge & Yi‐min Lin, 2024. "Military alliance and international trade: Evidence from NATO enlargement," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 47(3), pages 930-956, March.
    8. Silviano Esteve-Pérez & Salvador Gil-Pareja & Rafael Llorca-Vivero, 2020. "Does the GATT/WTO promote trade? After all, Rose was right," Review of World Economics (Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv), Springer;Institut für Weltwirtschaft (Kiel Institute for the World Economy), vol. 156(2), pages 377-405, May.
    9. Gabriel Felbermayr & Mario Larch & Erdal Yalcin & Yoto V. Yotov, 2024. "On the heterogeneous trade and welfare effects of GATT/WTO membership," Review of World Economics (Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv), Springer;Institut für Weltwirtschaft (Kiel Institute for the World Economy), vol. 160(3), pages 983-1008, August.
    10. Rodolfo G. Campos & Mario Larch & Jacopo Timini & Elena Vidal & Yoto V. Yotov, 2024. "Does the WTO Promote Trade? A Meta-analysis," Working Papers 2427, Banco de España.
    11. Harald Oberhofer & Zhenyi Wang, 2025. "Everything You Always Wanted to Know About EU Membership Trade Effects But Were Afraid to Ask," CESifo Working Paper Series 11823, CESifo.
    12. Sebastian Franco Bedoya & Woori Lee, 2024. "Heterogeneous Effects of Trade Agreements in Central America : The Case of CAFTA-DR," Policy Research Working Paper Series 10951, The World Bank.
    13. Christina L. Davis & Andreas Fuchs & Kristina Johnson, 2019. "State Control and the Effects of Foreign Relations on Bilateral Trade," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 63(2), pages 405-438, February.
    14. Yoto V. Yotov, 2024. "The evolution of structural gravity: The workhorse model of trade," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 42(4), pages 578-603, October.
    15. Carmen Díaz-Mora & Silviano Esteve-Pérez & Salvador Gil-Pareja & Fernando Ríos-Avila, 2024. "The EMU effect on trade: A re-assessment accounting for staggered treatment adoption," Working Papers 2407, Department of Applied Economics II, Universidad de Valencia.
    16. Díaz-Mora, Carmen & Esteve-Pérez, Silviano & Gil-Pareja, Salvador, 2023. "A re-assessment of the heterogeneous effect of trade agreements using intra-national trade flows," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 77(C), pages 940-951.
    17. Korn, Tobias & Stemmler, Henry, 2025. "The persistence of trade relocation from civil conflict," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 172(C).
    18. Yaying Liu & Jin Chen & Churen Sun, 2022. "Partnership Diplomacy and China’s Exports," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(19), pages 1-22, September.
    19. Mario Larch & Serge Shikher & Constantinos Syropoulos & Yoto V. Yotov, 2022. "Quantifying the impact of economic sanctions on international trade in the energy and mining sectors," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 60(3), pages 1038-1063, July.
    20. Mario Larch & Yoto V. Yotov, 2024. "Estimating the effects of trade agreements: Lessons from 60 years of methods and data," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 47(5), pages 1771-1799, May.

    More about this item

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:arx:papers:2509.17303. 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: arXiv administrators (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://arxiv.org/ .

    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.