IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/zbw/wtowps/311210.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The evolution of preferential trade under regional trade agreements: Has anything changed?

Author

Listed:
  • Acharya, Rohini
  • Parajuli, Thakur

Abstract

This paper examines the evolution of global merchandise trade, between 2010 and 2022, assessing the share of imports subject to regional trade agreements (RTAs). A key question for us is whether the share of merchandise trade subject to preferences has kept pace with the proliferation in RTAs. The paper finds that with the growing number of RTAs over the period, the share of the total volume of global imports involving RTA partners increased from 37% in 2010 to 52% in 2022. However, potential preferential imports between them under RTAs remained relatively stable, rising slightly from almost 17% in 2010 to 23% in 2022. Moreover, we find that on average 80% of global imports which do not fall under RTA preferences continued to dominate global merchandise trade between 2010 and 2022. Using tariff-line level import data for 157 customs territories and their RTAs, we find that, to a large extent, an increase in MFN duty-free imports globally has limited the scope of preferential imports under RTAs, highlighting the continued significance of MFN principles in international trade.

Suggested Citation

  • Acharya, Rohini & Parajuli, Thakur, 2025. "The evolution of preferential trade under regional trade agreements: Has anything changed?," WTO Staff Working Papers ERSD-2025-03, World Trade Organization (WTO), Economic Research and Statistics Division.
    • Handle: RePEc:zbw:wtowps:311210
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/311210/1/1917336381.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Aaditya Mattoo & Nadia Rocha & Michele Ruta & Aaditya Mattoo, 2020. "Handbook of Deep Trade Agreements," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 34055, August.
    2. Gonciarz, Tomasz & Verbeet, Thomas, 2025. "Significance of Most-Favoured-Nation terms in global trade: A comprehensive analysis," WTO Staff Working Papers ERSD-2025-02, World Trade Organization (WTO), Economic Research and Statistics Division.
    3. Nuno Limão, 2016. "Preferential Trade Agreements," NBER Working Papers 22138, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    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. Angella Montfaucon & Csilla Lakatos & Bayu Agnimaruto, 2024. "Trading in Green," World Bank Publications - Reports 41156, The World Bank Group.
    2. Beniamino Quintieri & Giovanni Stamato, 2023. "Are preferential agreements beneficial to EU trade? New evidence from the EU–South Korea treaty," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 46(12), pages 3511-3541, December.
    3. Kazunobu Hayakawa & Hiroshi Mukunoki, 2023. "The magnification effect in global value chains," Review of International Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 31(1), pages 141-157, February.
    4. Evgeny N. Smirnov & Sergey A. Lukyanov, 2021. "Instability of international trade and approaches to optimal regulation," Upravlenets, Ural State University of Economics, vol. 12(5), pages 21-31, November.
    5. Cerqua, Augusto & Montalbano, Pierluigi & Temerbulatova, Zhansaya, 2024. "A decade of Eurasian integration: An ex-post non-parametric assessment of the Eurasian economic union," International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 178(C).
    6. Karen Jackson & Oleksandr Shepotylo, 2021. "An examination of EU trade disintegration scenarios," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 44(1), pages 2-20, January.
    7. 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.
    8. Parenti, Mathieu & Vannoorenberghe, Gonzague, 2022. "A simple theory of deep trade integration," CEPR Discussion Papers 17199, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    9. Pablo Fajgelbaum & Pinelopi Goldberg & Patrick Kennedy & Amit Khandelwal & Daria Taglioni, 2024. "The US-China Trade War and Global Reallocations," American Economic Review: Insights, American Economic Association, vol. 6(2), pages 295-312, June.
    10. Amelie Guillin & Isabelle Rabaud & Chahir Zaki, 2023. "Does the depth of trade agreements matter for trade in services?," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 46(12), pages 3616-3653, December.
    11. Jacopo Timini & Nicola Cortinovis & Fernando López Vicente, 2022. "The heterogeneous effects of trade agreements with labour provisions," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 45(9), pages 2820-2853, September.
    12. Tovar, Patricia, 2019. "Preferential and multilateral liberalization: Evidence from Latin America’s use of tariffs, antidumping and safeguards," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 141(C).
    13. Olga Biryukova, 2022. "Joint Initiative on Services Domestic Regulation in the WTO: The Case of Russia," Global Policy, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 13(4), pages 594-605, September.
    14. Margalida Murillo & Cindy Paola Leal, 2021. "Tratados de Libre Comercio y duración de las exportaciones: Evidencia a nivel de firma para Colombia," Revista Desarrollo y Sociedad, Universidad de los Andes,Facultad de Economía, CEDE, vol. 88(6), pages 201-238, July.
    15. Francois, Joseph & Hoekman, Bernard & Manchin, Miriam, 2022. "Pursuing Environmental and Social Objectives through Trade Agreements," Papers 1377, World Trade Institute.
    16. Holger Breinlich & Valentina Corradi & Nadia Rocha & Michele Ruta & Joao M.C. Santos Silva & Tom Zylkin, 2021. "Machine Learning in International Trade Research ?- Evaluating the Impact of Trade Agreements," School of Economics Discussion Papers 0521, School of Economics, University of Surrey.
    17. Kaleb Abreha & Raymond Robertson, 2023. "Heterogeneous trade agreements and adverse implications of restrictive rules of origin: Evidence from apparel trade," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 46(12), pages 3482-3510, December.
    18. Baier, Scott L. & Yotov, Yoto V. & Zylkin, Thomas, 2019. "On the widely differing effects of free trade agreements: Lessons from twenty years of trade integration," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 116(C), pages 206-226.
    19. Neri--Lainé,Matteo & Orefice,Gianluca & Ruta,Michele, 2023. "Deep Trade Agreements and Heterogeneous Firms Exports," Policy Research Working Paper Series 10277, The World Bank.
    20. Bernard Hoekman & Charles Sabel, 2019. "Open Plurilateral Agreements, International Regulatory Cooperation and the WTO," Global Policy, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 10(3), pages 297-312, September.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    WTO; RTAs; Preferential Trade; MFN Trade;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • F13 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Trade Policy; International Trade Organizations
    • F14 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Empirical Studies of Trade
    • F15 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Economic Integration
    • F53 - International Economics - - International Relations, National Security, and International Political Economy - - - International Agreements and Observance; International Organizations

    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:zbw:wtowps:311210. 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: ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/wtoerch.html .

    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.