Ward M. Reesman
Working Papers
"Temporary Trade Barriers and Trade Growth"
Temporary trade barriers (TTBs) like antidumping (AD) have been shown to have large and persistent effects on trade flows between countries, but there is mixed evidence on the direction of the effect on trade to unrelated markets in part driven by unique institutional features that complicate identification. In this paper, we revisit classical TTB questions with a focus on AD policy through the lens of export growth using publicly available product-level trade data. We find qualitatively different trade effects when accounting for growth effects that suggest AD investigations are associated with global reductions in within-product trade, across all destinations. We provide evidence that these reductions are not primarily driven by policy-related chilling effects, and argue a supply-side investment/innovation channel is a larger contributor. Our findings suggest the aggregate impact of AD policy on the global trade flows of exporters is potentially large due to complementarity across export markets and long run effects. Working Paper
"Do Economic Integration Agreements Increase Members' Migration? Accounting for Migration in Trade Agreements" with Scott L. Baier
It is now well established that economic integration agreements are associated with more trade among countries within the trading bloc; less is known about the impact of trade agreements on migration from within and from outside the agreement. We construct a general equilibrium model to study the impact of economic integration agreements on migration and trade flows. The model, which is similar to that of Allen and Arkolakis (2014), Allen and Donaldson (2022), and described in Redding (2022), delivers gravity-like equations for trade flows and migration. Using this framework, we assess both the direct partial equilibrium and indirect general equilibrium effects of trade agreements on migration and trade. We show that, if the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) had the trade-creating effects of a common market, the populations of all three countries would increase and this would reinforce trade within the group. We also find welfare and world GDP increase as, on average, individuals move from lower-income areas with lower productivity to higher-income areas with higher productivity. If USMCA was also modified to allow for migration costs to fall by the same percent as we estimate for a common market, within-migration would increase, but the impact on trade and welfare are more modest.