Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/200403 
Year of Publication: 
2019
Series/Report no.: 
WTO Staff Working Paper No. ERSD-2019-09
Publisher: 
World Trade Organization (WTO), Geneva
Abstract: 
We capitalize on the latest developments in the empirical structural gravity literature to revisit the question of whether and how much does GATT/WTO membership affect international trade. We are the first to capture the non-discriminatory nature of GATT/WTO commitments by measuring the effects of GATT/WTO membership on international trade relative to domestic sales. These unilateral effects of GATT/WTO membership are found to be large, positive, and statistically significant. We also obtain bilateral GATT/WTO estimates, which are larger than those reported in the literature. In particular, our results imply that, on average, joining GATT and/or WTO has increased trade between members by 171% and trade between member and non-member countries by about 88%. We also find that although both GATT/WTO has been effective in promoting trade between members, the WTO has been more effective in promoting trade with non-members than GATT. A battery of sensitivity experiments confirms the effectiveness of our methods and robustness of our main findings.
Subjects: 
GATT/WTO
International Trade
Domestic Sales
Structural Gravity
JEL: 
F13
F14
F16
Persistent Identifier of the first edition: 
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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