A Note on the Impact of International Trade on the Growth of Developing Economics

This paper investigates the impact of international trade on the economic growth of a group of developing countries. For this, the structural model proposed by Anderson et al. (2014) is used. The results indicate that growth is stimulated by bilateral trade. Counterfactual exercises suggest that trade liberalization, whether it results from reduced NAFTA costs or a hyperglobalization process, has a significant and positive impact on social welfare for some of the countries analyzed. In the case of Brazil, the improvement in welfare is 0.25% and 9.13%, respectively. Overall, the results demonstrate that international trade can be used as a tool to leverage GDP growth and the welfare of countries.