Deep trade agreements and services trade: An analysis based on service trade provisions

Abstract Our paper builds a novel panel data sourced from the Regional Trade Agreements Database and Database on International Trade in Services Statistics (ITSS) to explore the heterogeneous effects of service trade agreements on services trade. Then we employ a gravity model with the Poisson pseudo‐maximum likelihood (PPML) estimation and obtain the following findings: First, both general service trade agreements and deep service trade agreements promote services trade. Yet, deep trade agreements have a higher trade‐expansion effect (roughly 21.53%) on services trade compared to general ones (16.9%). Next, based on the content of trade‐related provisions, we find provisions of rights of non‐establishment and natural person movement largely increase the services trade, while review provisions do not have a significant impact on services trade. Surprisingly, provisions with MFN status even exhibit a negative relationship with services trade. Third, with whom you sign the agreements matters. Deep trade agreements exert a positive and significant impact on services trade between high‐income countries (NN), low‐income countries (SS) and high‐ to low‐income countries (NS), but are insignificant between low‐ to high‐income countries (SN). Four, emerging regions, including China, may benefit more from deep trade agreements. As indicated by propensity score matching, deep trade agreements reduce service trade costs and improve the business environment more effectively than GTAs. Our empirical results are robust after controlling for the endogeneity of DTAs and GTAs. Our findings provide direct evidence for the role of deep service trade agreements in fostering international economic integration.