Trade Development and Political Economy present: Xuepeng Liu

Trade Development and Political Economy present: Xuepeng Liu Associate Professor of Economics, Kennesaw State University, Georgia Trade Agreements And Economic Growth Liu studies the growth effects of regional trade agreements (RTAs), taking into account the WTO participation of RTA members. He lays out a model of economic growth in which trade liberalization through the WTO or RTAs allows for easier access to intermediate goods produced by other members. The model predicts a stronger growth effect of RTAs for non-WTO members than that for WTO members. Based on a comprehensive set of 270 RTAs and a large panel dataset, the regression results show that RTAs promote growth for non-WTO members; while their growth effect is insignificantly different from zero for WTO members. Speaker: Xuepeng Liu is Associate Professor of Economics at Kennesaw State University in Georgia. His research interests are in international trade, development and political economy and his work has been published in prestigious journals like the Review of Economics and Statistics and the Journal of International Economics. He holds a PhD degree in Economics from Syracuse University (He is one of our very successful former students).