On the trade effects of GATT/WTO membership: They are positive and large after all
Mario Larch et al.
What the paper says
The existing empirical literature on impact of GATT/WTO membership on international trade is mixed. This paper contributes to solving the puzzle of “the missing GATT/WTO effects” by adhering closely to the theoretical foundations of the gravity model of trade. Capitalizing on the latest developments in the empirical trade literature and building a new and large data set covering 186 countries over the period 1980–2016, we estimate a theory‐consistent gravity equation, which includes intra‐national in addition to international trade flows. We find that joining GATT/WTO increased partial equilibrium trade between members by 140%. Our methods also deliver novel estimates of the impact of GATT/WTO on trade between members and non‐member countries, indicating an increase of 72%.
7 citations
Evidence weight
Balanced mode · F 0.40 / M 0.15 / V 0.05 / R 0.40
| F · citation impact | 0.47 × 0.4 = 0.19 |
| M · momentum | 0.68 × 0.15 = 0.10 |
| V · venue signal | 0.50 × 0.05 = 0.03 |
| R · text relevance † | 0.50 × 0.4 = 0.20 |
† Text relevance is estimated at 0.50 on the detail page — for your query’s actual relevance score, open this paper from a search result.