A Deepening/Widening Tradeoff? Evidence from the GATT and WTO

This paper proposes that the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) and its successor, the World Trade Organization (WTO), experienced a deepening/widening tradeoff: as their membership increased (greater width), their effectiveness in promoting trade between members/participants declined (le...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Political research quarterly 2024-06, Vol.77 (2), p.549-561
Main Authors: Bearce, David H., Eldredge, Cody D.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Case studies
GATT
Gravity
International trade
Width
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Summary:This paper proposes that the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) and its successor, the World Trade Organization (WTO), experienced a deepening/widening tradeoff: as their membership increased (greater width), their effectiveness in promoting trade between members/participants declined (lesser de facto depth). This proposition is tested using gravity models of bilateral trade, first separating the GATT and WTO, which are usually combined into a single variable, and then adding a width variable corresponding to each institution. The results show that (1) both regimes were the deepest, or the most trade effective, when they had the fewest member-states and (2) their trade effectiveness declined, eventually becoming statistically insignificant, as more countries joined. As a quantitative case study, this paper provides some of the first evidence consistent with a tradeoff between depth and width within international institutions.
ISSN:1065-9129
1938-274X
DOI:10.1177/10659129231223163