This paper re-examines the effect of the GATT/WTO on trade using recent econometric developments that allow us estimating structural gravity equations with the Poisson pseudo-maximum likelihood (PPML) estimator on a large dataset that requires computing high-dimensional fixed effects. By doing so, we overcome computational limitations that are present in previous studies. In line with Rose’s (Am Econ Rev 94:98–114, 2004) seminal work, we find that, unlike regional trade agreements and currency unions, the GATT/WTO accession has not generated positive trade effects. This result is robust to the use of alternative measures of trade flows, across periods and country groups, to changes in the periodicity of the data, when taking into account the GATT/WTO accession dynamics, to controlling for the participation of only one country of the dyad in GATT/WTO, to the consideration of non-member participants, and to the use of alternative datasets. Notwithstanding, we also find that PPML results are sensitive to the definition of the dependent variable.

中文翻译：

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关贸总协定/世贸组织是否促进贸易？毕竟，罗斯是对的

本文使用最近的计量经济学进展，重新检验了GATT / WTO对贸易的影响，这使我们能够在需要计算高维固定效应的大型数据集上使用Poisson拟最大似然（PPML）估算器估算结构重力方程。这样，我们克服了先前研究中存在的计算限制。与Rose的著作（Am Econ Rev 94：98-114，2004）一致，我们发现，与区域贸易协议和货币联盟不同，GATT / WTO的加入并未产生积极的贸易影响。当考虑到关贸总协定/世贸组织的加入动态时，这一结果对于跨时期和跨国家组使用替代性贸易流量测度，数据周期性变化是有力的，控制仅一个国家参加GATT / WTO，考虑非成员参加，以及使用替代数据集。尽管如此，我们还发现PPML结果对因变量的定义敏感。