Working Paper: NBER ID: w21303
Authors: Kyle Bagwell; Chad P. Bown; Robert W. Staiger
Abstract: The WTO has delivered policy outcomes that are very different from those likely to emerge out of the recent wave of preferential trade agreements (PTAs). Should economists see this as an efficient institutional hand-off, where the WTO has carried trade liberalization as far as it can manage, and is now passing the baton to PTAs to finish the job? We survey a growing economics literature on international trade agreements and argue on this basis that the WTO is not passé. Rather, and subject to some caveats, our survey of research to date suggests that the WTO is structured in a way that is likely to encourage policy outcomes that are viewed as efficiency enhancing by WTO member governments, while the analogous claim for PTA-led liberalization is less clear.
Keywords: WTO; PTAs; trade liberalization; international trade agreements
JEL Codes: F13; F15; F53; F55
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| WTO membership (F13) | lower tariffs (F13) |
| WTO (F13) | trade liberalization (F13) |
| PTAs existence (P30) | complicate multilateral trade liberalization (F13) |
| PTAs (Z22) | undermine WTO (F13) |
| PTAs (Z22) | deeper integration (F15) |