The Trade Effects of Endogenous Preferential Trade Agreements∗

This paper suggests an empirical modeling strategy which takes full account of the structural, non-(log-)linear impact of endogenous trade barriers on trade in new trade theory models. In particular, we use the framework to evaluate and quantify the role of endogenous preferential trade agreement (PTA) membership for trade. Apart from paying attention to structural modeling of the impact of trade policy on trade, the suggested model takes into account both that preferential trade agreement membership is endogenous and that the world matrix of bilateral trade flows contains numerous zero entries. These features are treated in an encompassing way by means of (possibly two-part) Poisson pseudo-maximum likelihood estimation with endogenous binary indicator variables in the empirical model. Key words: Gravity model; Endogenous preferential trade agreement mem-bership; Poisson pseudo-maximum likelihood estimation with endogenous binary indicator variable