Is WTO Governed Trade Regime Sufficient for Export Growth?

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Abstract

The impact of WTO promulgated multilateral trade regime on world trade growth and welfare has remained an important issue since the formation of the institution in the mid-1990s. International trade economists have agreed to disagree on the subject. The finding of insignificant effect of WTO in promoting world trade, as empirically established by Rose (Am Econ Rev 94(1):98–114, 2004a), has been refuted by Subramanian and Wei (J Int Econ 71(1):151–175, 2007), Tomz et al. (Am Econ Rev 97(5):2005–2018, 2007), Helpman et al. (Q J Econ CXXIII(2), 2008), among others. The study investigates into whether WTO membership is sufficient for trade growth across countries. Using a gravity model framework and a dataset of 200 exporters and 234 importers, the study, controlling for trade facilitating infrastructure, time and country fixed effects along with other extended gravity variables, finds that WTO’s trade regime, even though necessary, is not sufficient for growth in trade.

Keywords

World trade organization Multilateral trade Export growth Gravity model 

JEL Classification

F13 F14 F15 
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Copyright information

© Springer India 2016

Authors and Affiliations

  1. 1.Department of EconomicsJadavpur UniversityKolkataIndia
  2. 2.Department of Economic AffairsMinistry of FinanceNew DelhiIndia

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