Effects of the Regional Trading Arrangements on Trade: Evidence from the NAFTA, ANZCER and ASEAN Countries, 1989 – 2000

Using the modified gravity model, this study examines whether the free trade areas of NAFTA, ANZCER and ASEAN would result in trade creation among the member countries and trade diversion with the non-member countries. Further, it applies Linder's income similarity concept to explain the trade patterns in the developed and developing countries within these free trade areas. First, the results suggest that the implementations of the free trade areas have facilitated higher trade among the member countries, particularly the ANZCER and ASEAN countries. However, among all three free trade areas, the formation of the ANZCER free trade area has resulted in trade diversion with non-member countries, whereas that of the ASEAN free trade area has resulted in a trade increase with non-member countries. Surprisingly, the formation of the NAFTA free trade area has no significant effect on trade with non-member countries as their trade flows remain quite low even before its implementation. Second, the result indicates that the trade-enhancing effect of income similarity is confirmed for the developing rather than developed member countries. The developing member countries with similar incomes would trade extensively more with each other. This result can be partly explained by Hanink's income threshold concept, which argues that the income similarity effect is only applicable to developed countries with very small difference in incomes. Given the heterogeneous country sample in this study, the substantial income differences among the developed member countries would probably account for the lack of income similarity effect in these countries.