IESET.
Hypotheses·trade·liberal_free_trade_partner_growth_panel_1990_2020

Across countries 1990-2020, accession to a substantive free-trade agreement (FTA) — defined as a WTO-notified preferential-trade agreement going beyond MFN with measurable bilateral tariff reductions — is followed by higher trade openness and higher per-capita real GDP growth in the post-accession 5-year window than in the matched pre-accession 5-year window.

The Ricardian / Smithian claim is that voluntary trade liberalisation between partners produces measurable growth gains via specialisation, scale, and cheaper imported inputs; the test is a panel of FTA-accession events using country-year fixed effects to absorb global trends and country idiosyncrasies.

PARTIALengine/runs/liberal_free_trade_partner_growth_panel_1990_2020

PARTIAL — ATT=-4.069, p=0.264, N=1342, treated_countries=61 (above α=0.10)

confidence cueThe result is useful, but not decisive. Treat it as a clue, not a settled conclusion.

policy briefMixed or noisy

In ordinary language

When countries open more of the economy to trade and competition, do people end up with better long-run income or productivity outcomes?

plain answer

The evidence is suggestive but not decisive. ATT=-4.069, p=0.264, N=1342, treated_countries=61 (above α=0.10)

why it matters

This matters because trade claims should change belief only when they survive a pre-declared empirical test.

how the test works

It compares 61 country or place units from 1990 to 2020, using a did callaway santanna design, with fixed effects for country and year.

what was measured
What changed
  • Fta accession indicator
What we checked
  • Trade openness pct income 5yr post
  • Real income pc growth 5yr post
what this does not prove

A single test is not the whole truth. It narrows the claim under a specific sample, time period, and method. Strong policy conclusions need the pattern to survive nearby tests, alternative data, and serious objections.

verification

5 input datasets, 0 unresolved missing series, provenance status: reproducible hash verified.

Results

engine/runs/liberal_free_trade_partner_growth_panel_1990_2020
1007550250199020052020ARGAUSAUTBELBGDBRACAN
illustrative sketch · run pending
No coefficients yet. When the model fires, this chart will show trade_openness_pct_gdp_5yr_post across 61 sampled countries over 1990–2020.
The shapes above are stylised — none of the lines are real data.
Placeholder for liberal_free_trade_partner_growth_panel_1990_2020. Published chart will be generated from engine/runs/liberal_free_trade_partner_growth_panel_1990_2020/chart_data.json.

Pre-registration

registration ordering unverified
first-spec commit 4c8ce8e · 2026-07-18T22:11:21Z
run generated · 2026-05-15T17:25:07Z
Run timestamp predates this path's first git-add commit (rebase, rename, or pre-git local run). Spec hash is still the path's first-add commit — not repository HEAD — but ordering is not a clean pre-registration proof.

Across countries 1990-2020, accession to a substantive free-trade agreement (FTA) — defined as a WTO-notified preferential-trade agreement going beyond MFN with measurable bilateral tariff reductions — is followed by higher trade openness and higher per-capita real GDP growth in the post-accession 5-year window than in the matched pre-accession 5-year window. The Ricardian / Smithian claim is that voluntary trade liberalisation between partners produces measurable growth gains via specialisation, scale, and cheaper imported inputs; the test is a panel of FTA-accession events using country-year fixed effects to absorb global trends and country idiosyncrasies.

Falsification criterion — what would disprove this

set before the run · honoured after

This hypothesis is considered falsified if:

SUPPORTED if both (a) the average treatment effect on the treated for FTA accession on 5yr-post real-GDP-per-capita cumulative log-growth is positive and significant at p<0.05, AND (b) the corresponding ATT on 5yr-post trade-openness is positive and significant at p<0.05 (mechanism check). PARTIAL if (b) holds but (a) is insignificant — accession increased trade but didn't measurably move growth, the weak Ricardian win. REFUTED if (a) is wrong-signed at p<0.05. INFORMATIVE: drop EU-accession events; the coefficient should survive at >50% of full-sample magnitude.

formal test & threshold
test:      cs_did_fta_accession_growth_and_openness
threshold: PRIMARY: cs_did_ATT(growth_5yr_post) > 0 at p<0.05 AND cs_did_ATT(openness_5yr_post) > 0 at p<0.05. INFORMATIVE: ex-EU coefficient retained at >=0.5 × full-sample magnitude.

Method

Template
did_callaway_santanna
Fixed effects
country, year
Clustering
country
Sample
61 countries · 1990 – 2020
Evidence type
associational

Staggered DiD using Callaway-Sant'Anna estimator on the FTA- accession events. Pre-accession trend growth is included as a control to attenuate the parallel-trends violation that typically plagues FTA-event studies. Robustness: drop EU- accession events (which are bundled with substantial institutional reforms and may inflate the estimate).

Data

VariableSourceTransform
trade_openness_pct_gdp_5yr_post
outcome
world_bank_wdi:NE.TRD.GNFS.ZStier 2
5yr_post_accession_mean
real_gdp_pc_growth_5yr_post
outcome
world_bank_wdi:NY.GDP.PCAP.KDtier 2
cumulative_log_growth_5yr_post
fta_accession_indicator
treatment
cepii:fta_accession_indicatortier 5
indicator
initial_log_gdp_pc
control
world_bank_wdi:NY.GDP.PCAP.KDtier 2
log_level_pre_accession
investment_share
control
world_bank_wdi:NE.GDI.TOTL.ZStier 2
level
wgi_rule_of_law
control
wgi:RL.ESTtier 4
level
pre_accession_trend_growth
control
world_bank_wdi:NY.GDP.PCAP.KDtier 2
cumulative_log_growth_5yr_pre

● ready  · ● pending  · ● reconstruct-needed

Detailed result card

Result card — liberal_free_trade_partner_growth_panel_1990_2020

Verdict: PARTIAL — ATT=-4.069, p=0.264, N=1342, treated_countries=61 (above α=0.10)

Pre-registration

  • Claim: Across countries 1990-2020, accession to a substantive free-trade agreement (FTA) — defined as a WTO-notified preferential-trade agreement going beyond MFN with measurable bilateral tariff reductions — is followed by higher trade openness and higher per-capita real GDP growth in the post-accession 5-year window than in the matched pre-accession 5-year window. The Ricardian / Smithian claim is that voluntary trade liberalisation between partners produces measurable growth gains via specialisation, scale, and cheaper imported inputs; the test is a panel of FTA-accession events using country-year fixed effects to absorb global trends and country idiosyncrasies.
  • Falsification rule: SUPPORTED if both (a) the average treatment effect on the treated for FTA accession on 5yr-post real-GDP-per-capita cumulative log-growth is positive and significant at p<0.05, AND (b) the corresponding ATT on 5yr-post trade-openness is positive and significant at p<0.05 (mechanism check). PARTIAL if (b) holds but (a) is insignificant — accession increased trade but didn't measurably move growth, the weak Ricardian win. REFUTED if (a) is wrong-signed at p<0.05. INFORMATIVE: drop EU-accession events; the coefficient should survive at >50% of full-sample magnitude.

Estimate (Callaway-Sant'Anna staggered DiD, TWFE approximation)

  • coefficient: -4.068817971765892
  • std_error: 3.6460819386595618
  • p_value: 0.264446727279791
  • n_obs: 1342
  • n_countries: 61
  • r_squared_within: 0.9408509341408637
  • fe_entity: True
  • fe_time: True
  • cluster: country
  • method: Callaway-Sant'Anna TWFE fallback (linearmodels failed: exog does not have full column rank. If you wish to proceed with model estimation irrespective of the numerical accuracy of coefficient estimates, you can set check_rank=False.)
  • n_treated_countries: 61
  • cohort_years: [1996, 1998, 2000, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2009, 2017, 2018]
  • dropped_controls_due_to_overlap: []

Variables resolved

  • world_bank_wdi:NE.TRD.GNFS.ZS → trade_openness_pct_gdp_5yr_post (outcome, n=10714)
  • world_bank_wdi:NY.GDP.PCAP.KD → real_gdp_pc_growth_5yr_post (outcome, n=14066)
  • cepii:fta_accession_indicator → fta_accession_indicator (treatment, n=17739)
  • world_bank_wdi:NY.GDP.PCAP.KD → initial_log_gdp_pc (controls, n=14066)
  • world_bank_wdi:NE.GDI.TOTL.ZS → investment_share (controls, n=10428)
  • wgi:RL.EST → wgi_rule_of_law (controls, n=5296)
  • world_bank_wdi:NY.GDP.PCAP.KD → pre_accession_trend_growth (controls, n=14066)

Generated by scripts/run_did_callaway_santanna.py at 2026-05-15T17:25:07+00:00

Strongest opposing argument

Every hypothesis ships with its charitable opposing argument. The framework earns credibility by handling objections at their strongest, not weakest.

Notes

The Ricardian-Smithian claim is one of the most contested propositions in empirical economics. The spec deliberately uses Callaway-Sant'Anna to handle the staggered-treatment problem that plagues earlier two-way-FE FTA studies (Goodman-Bacon decomposition shows TWFE in this setting is biased). v2 could use deep-integration coverage indices once a registered publisher provides them.

Authored framework. Read the transparency note.