Deep Trade Agreements and Global Value Chains

Edith Laget, Alberto Osnago and Nadia Rocha and Michele Ruta
Authors registered in the RePEc Author Service: Nadia Rocha and Michele Ruta

No 2019/86, RSCAS Working Papers from European University Institute

Abstract: Preferential Trade Agreements (PTAs) have become deeper over time, often encompassing a set of disciplines that go beyond traditional trade policy such as investment, competition, and intellectual property rights protection. In the policy and theory literature, a prominent argument why countries sign “deep” PTAs is to promote and facilitate the operation of Global Value Chains (GVCs). This paper exploits a new dataset on the content of PTAs and data on trade in value added and in parts and components to quantify the impact of deep trade agreements on bilateral cross-border production linkages. Results show that the positive impact of deep trade agreements on GVC integration is driven by value added trade in intermediate rather than in final goods and services. Adding a policy area to a PTA increases domestic value added of intermediates (forward GVC linkages) and foreign value added of intermediates (backward GVC linkages) by 0.48 and 0.38 percent, respectively. At the sectoral level, the positive impact of deep PTAs is higher for higher value-added services suggesting that deep agreements help countries to integrate in industries with higher levels of value added. On a larger sample of countries and years, results confirm that adding a provision to a PTA increases bilateral trade in parts and components by 0.3 percent. The content of PTAs also matters for GVC integration, but the impact varies by income group. Provisions outside the current WTO mandate (e.g. investment, competition policy) drive the effect of deep PTAs on value added trade and on North-South trade in parts and components. Provisions under the current WTO mandate (e.g. tariff reduction, customs facilitation) drive the effect of deep PTAs on South-South trade in parts and components.

Keywords: Trade Agreements; Global Value Chains; Deep Integration; Regionalism. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: F13 F15 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019-10
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-int
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Related works:
Journal Article: Deep Trade Agreements and Global Value Chains (2020)
Working Paper: Deep trade agreements and global value chains (2018)
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