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This paper builds on theoretical predictions that show that gains from regional integration are unevenly distributed between resource rich and poor countries. It explores the effects of different integration schemes in the Middle East and North Africa. The results suggest that within the Pan Arab Free Trade Agreement, there is significant trade creation for resource poor countries associated with regional integration, and no evidence of trade diversion. In resource rich countries, however, there is evidence of pure trade diversion in both resource-rich/labor-abundant countries and resource-rich/labor-importing countries. This underscores the idea that regional integration can help to spread the benefits of unevenly distributed resource wealth among the region's economies.

Economic Theory & Research --- Free Trade --- International Economics & Trade --- Pafta --- Regionalism --- Trade and Regional Integration --- Trade Law --- Trade Policy --- Mena

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This paper builds on theoretical predictions that show that gains from regional integration are unevenly distributed between resource rich and poor countries. It explores the effects of different integration schemes in the Middle East and North Africa. The results suggest that within the Pan Arab Free Trade Agreement, there is significant trade creation for resource poor countries associated with regional integration, and no evidence of trade diversion. In resource rich countries, however, there is evidence of pure trade diversion in both resource-rich/labor-abundant countries and resource-rich/labor-importing countries. This underscores the idea that regional integration can help to spread the benefits of unevenly distributed resource wealth among the region's economies.

Economic Theory & Research --- Free Trade --- International Economics & Trade --- Pafta --- Regionalism --- Trade and Regional Integration --- Trade Law --- Trade Policy --- Mena

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This paper examines systematically the growth effects of trade integration in Sub-Saharan Africa. It complements and improves upon the empirical literature in two aspects: first, it jointly estimates the impact of different dimensions of trade integration, namely, trade volumes, export/trade patterns by product (primary and manufacturing goods), and by destination (inter- and intra-regional). Second, it estimates the impact of trade integration on economic growth and its sources, that is, capital accumulation and total factor productivity growth. The analysis finds causal evidence that trade integration fosters growth. Additionally, manufacturing trade boosts growth and trade in primary goods hampers growth. Doubling the manufacturing trade share in Sub-Saharan Africa's gross domestic product would increase growth by 1.9 percentage points per year, while increases in primary trade reduce growth by 1 percentage point. This impact is mainly transmitted through lower capital accumulation. Finally, inter- and intra-regional trade have a positive impact on growth in Sub-Saharan Africa. Doubling inter-regional trade will increase growth by 1.9 percentage points, and the same increase for intra-regional trade enhances growth by 0.6 percentage points. The effects of inter-regional trade are transmitted primarily through capital accumulation, while those of intra-regional trade are channeled through enhanced total factor productivity growth.

Economic Growth --- Export Competitiveness --- Export Diversification --- Export Patterns --- International Economics and Trade --- Manufacturing Trade --- Regional Trade --- Total Factor Productivity --- Trade and Regional Integration --- Trade Integration --- Trade Policy

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This paper proposes a simple and flexible econometric approach to quantify ex-ante the "deep" impact of trade liberalization and the "hard" effects of protection with the empirical structural gravity model. Specifically, the paper argues that the difference between the estimates of border indicator variables for affected and non-affected countries can be used as a comprehensive measure of the change in bilateral trade costs in response to a hypothetical policy change. To demonstrate the effectiveness of these methods, the paper focus on the integration between the countries from the Central European Free Trade Agreement (CEFTA) and the European Union (EU), which is an important policy application that has not been studied before due to lack of data. This analysis overcomes this challenge by utilizing a new dataset on trade and production that covers all EU countries and all CEFTA members (except for Kosovo). The partial equilibrium estimates that we obtain confirm the validity of our methods, while the corresponding general equilibrium effects point to significant and heterogeneous potential gains for the CEFTA countries from joining the EU. The proposed methods can also be extended to ex-post analysis and are readily applicable to other applications, for example, "hard" Brexit.

Cefta --- Free Trade Agreement --- International Economics and Trade --- International Trade and Trade Rules --- Structural Gravity --- Trade and Regional Integration --- Trade Costs --- Trade Liberalization --- Trade Policy --- Trade Protection

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This paper examines the impact of preferential trade agreements on the duration of antidumping protection. It employs a two-step selection model where the first step accounts for the impact of preferential trade agreement membership on the original antidumping determination, and the second step estimates the impact of preferential trade agreement membership on the duration of duties. Several key findings emerge from the analysis. Most importantly, the duration of antidumping protection is significantly shorter for preferential trade agreement members, compared with targeted countries that are not preferential trade agreement members. The estimates imply that preferential trade agreement membership is associated with a 30 percent reduction in the duration of protection. Second, the impact on duration depends, in part, on whether the preferential trade agreement has rules specifically related to antidumping. On average, over all users and targeted countries, the impact on duration is about twice as large for preferential trade agreements with rules, compared with those with- out rules (and both have shorter duration than non-preferential trade agreement members). Third, the duration of antidumping measures has increased markedly over time, primarily due to cases in the right tail of the distribution. This is consistent with the widespread belief that the Uruguay Round's sunset review provisions did not produce the result that many World Trade Organization members sought, but it also reflects the growing fraction of cases targeting China. Although the rising fraction of cases against China partly explains why duration has increased, it does not explain the finding with respect to the impact of preferential trade agreements and duration.

Antidumping --- International Economics and Trade --- International Trade and Trade Rules --- Preferential Trade Agreements --- Protection Duration --- Trade and Regional Integration --- Trade Protection --- World Trade Organization