Dissecting the Trade Effects of Europe’s Economic Integration Agreements

Sophie Soete and Jan Van Hove ()
Additional contact information
Jan Van Hove: University of Leuven and KBC Group, Postal: Naamsestraat 69 bus 3563, 3000 Leuven, Belgium

Journal of Economic Integration, 2017, vol. 32, issue 1, 193-243

Abstract: This paper systematically studies the trade effects of Economic Integration Agreements involving the European Union. We thoroughly disentangle the ex post effects of these agreements by analyzing various sources of heterogeneity and controlling for potential endogeneity and multilateral resistance. Our results confirm the general trade-enhancing impact, but point to an asymmetric effect on European exports and imports. While free trade agreements strongly increase import competition in the European Union market, their effect on European exports is much more complex. Economic Integration Agreements enhance trade by more product differentiation (the extensive margin), but reduce the trade intensity (the intensive margin) simultaneously. Nevertheless, the cumulative effect over time is positive for imports, as well as exports. Moreover, the trade effects differ across European Union member states and across agreements. In particular, the integration depth and the economic rationale matter.

Keywords: Trade Agreements; European Union; Gravity Model; Panel Data; Margins of Trade (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: F13 F14 F15 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (8)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.e-jei.org/ Full text (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: Dissecting the trade effects of Europe's economic integration agreements (2015)
Working Paper: Dissecting the trade effects of Europe’s economic integration agreements (2014)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ris:integr:0711

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Economic Integration is currently edited by Seongeun Kim

More articles in Journal of Economic Integration from Center for Economic Integration, Sejong University Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Yunhoe Kim ().