This paper seeks to determine why countries form regional trade agreements. Using bilateral data from 1950 to 2013 for 468 trade agreements and 179 countries, I use survival analysis to examine the factors that determine the likelihood of two countries entering into a trade agreement at any point in time. Potential explanatory variables include prior trade flows, export distance, GDP, per-capita GDP, geography, culture, and institutions. The results show that trade, per-capita GDP, and similarities in culture and institutions increase the likelihood that two countries will form a regional trade agreement. Larger, more distant, and more isolated countries are less likely to form an RTA, as are country-pairs that are different in size.

本文试图确定为什么国家形成区域贸易协定。我使用1950年至2013年间468个贸易协定和179个国家的双边数据，使用生存分析研究了确定两个国家在任何时间点订立贸易协定的可能性的因素。可能的解释变量包括先前的贸易流量，出口距离，GDP，人均GDP，地理，文化和制度。结果表明，贸易，人均GDP以及文化和制度上的相似性增加了两国达成区域贸易协定的可能性。更大，更遥远和更孤立的国家形成RTA的可能性较小，而规模不同的国家/地区对也是如此。