IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cpr/ceprdp/4246.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Does the WTO Make Trade More Stable?

Author

Listed:
  • Rose, Andrew

Abstract

I examine the hypothesis that membership in the World Trade Organization (WTO) and its predecessor the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) has increased the stability and predictability of trade flows. I use a large dataset covering annual bilateral trade flows between over 175 countries between 1950 and 1999, and estimate the effect of GATT/WTO membership on the coefficient of variation in trade computed over 25- year samples, controlling for a number of factors. I also use a comparable multilateral dataset. There is little evidence that membership in the GATT/WTO has a significant dampening effect on trade volatility.

Suggested Citation

  • Rose, Andrew, 2004. "Does the WTO Make Trade More Stable?," CEPR Discussion Papers 4246, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    • Handle: RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:4246
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://cepr.org/publications/DP4246
    Download Restriction: CEPR Discussion Papers are free to download for our researchers, subscribers and members. If you fall into one of these categories but have trouble downloading our papers, please contact us at subscribers@cepr.org
    ---><---

    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. 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.
    2. Andrew K. Rose, 2004. "Do We Really Know That the WTO Increases Trade?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 94(1), pages 98-114, March.
    3. Subramanian, Arvind & Wei, Shang-Jin, 2007. "The WTO promotes trade, strongly but unevenly," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 72(1), pages 151-175, May.
    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. Fetzer, James J. & Rivera, Sandra A., 2005. "Modeling Modifications in Rules of Origin: A Partial Equilibrium Approach," Conference papers 331372, Purdue University, Center for Global Trade Analysis, Global Trade Analysis Project.
    2. 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.
    3. Yoke Fong Kong & Richard Kneller, 2016. "Measuring the Impact of China's Export Growth on its Asian Neighbours," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 39(2), pages 195-220, February.
    4. Cipollina, Maria & Salvatici, Luca, 2007. "EU and developing countries: an analysis of preferential margins on agricultural trade flows," Working Papers 7219, TRADEAG - Agricultural Trade Agreements.
    5. Christian Elleby & Wusheng Yu & Qian Yu, 2018. "The Chinese Export Displacement Effect Revisited," IFRO Working Paper 2018/02, University of Copenhagen, Department of Food and Resource Economics.
    6. 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.
    7. Emanuel Ornelas, 2016. "Special and Differential Treatment for Developing Countries," CESifo Working Paper Series 5823, CESifo.
    8. 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.
    9. Philippe Martin & Thierry Mayer & Mathias Thoenig, 2008. "Make Trade Not War?," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 75(3), pages 865-900.
    10. Juyoung Cheong & Do Won Kwak & Kam Ki Tang, 2014. "The WTO puzzle, multilateral resistance terms and multicollinearity," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 21(13), pages 928-933, September.
    11. Hyun‐Hoon Lee & Chung Mo Koo & Euijeong Park, 2008. "Are Exports of China, Japan and Korea Diverted in the Major Regional Trading Blocs?," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 31(7), pages 841-860, July.
    12. 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.
    13. Lampe, Markus, 2009. "Effects of Bilateralism and the MFN Clause on International Trade: Evidence for the Cobden-Chevalier Network, 1860-1875," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 69(4), pages 1012-1040, December.
    14. 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.
    15. Theo S. Eicher & Christian Henn, 2011. "One Money, One Market: A Revised Benchmark," Review of International Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 19(3), pages 419-435, August.
    16. Tristan Kohl & Steven Brakman & Harry Garretsen, 2016. "Do Trade Agreements Stimulate International Trade Differently? Evidence from 296 Trade Agreements," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 39(1), pages 97-131, January.
    17. Silvia Nenci, 2009. "Tariff liberatization and the growth of word trade: A comparative historiocal analysis to evaluate the multilateral trading system," Departmental Working Papers of Economics - University 'Roma Tre' 0110, Department of Economics - University Roma Tre.
    18. Lee, Hyun-Hoon & Park, Donghyun & Wang, Jing, 2013. "Different types of firms, different types of products, and their dynamics: An anatomy of China's imports," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 25(C), pages 62-77.
    19. Emanuel Ornelas & Marcos Ritel, 2020. "The not‐so‐generalised effects of the Generalized System of Preferences," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 43(7), pages 1809-1840, July.
    20. Miaojie Yu, 2010. "Does Appreciation of the RMB Decrease Imports to the U.S. from China?," Trade Working Papers 22040, East Asian Bureau of Economic Research.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Volatility; Empirical; Data; Bilateral; Coefficient; Variation; Panel; International; Flow;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • F13 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Trade Policy; International Trade Organizations

    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:cpr:ceprdp:4246. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cepr.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.