The effect of Mercosur on trade : How have Mercosur effected trade between member countries?

This thesis examines whether there is an effect of the Mercosur free trade agreement on export and import between member countries. The study uses an extended gravity model framework on a panel data between the years 1975 to 2017 for 34 countries, including the member countries. Two different regressions were run using OLS and country fixed effect. A Linder effect was also added to the regressions to further understand the impact on trade. The results show a significantly positive effect of the FTA on imports. The FTA yielded insignificant and significantly negative result for OLS and FEM respectively on exports.